How to Replace and Correctly Adjust Land Rover Wheel Bearings

Hello and welcome to Britpart. I'm over here in Shropshire at the HQ with Paul Myers, who's the MD. Paul, when somebody goes and gets their Land Rover fixed, how do they know that they're gonna be using a Britpart part? Okay. All I have stock is we'll have our products on the shelf or can obtain it next day. All of it's packaged and labeled as such. And we have identifying features on the box which will be the part number; tells us what's in the box, obviously. A GI number, which is a good inwards number for traceability, and also a cure date, which tells us when the part was packed. Fantastic, okay. So what are we looking at here, Paul? This is a wheel bearing kit. Suits Defender, Discovery One, range of a classic. So we've got the two wheel bearings, very important. These are made to tolerance with the correct material, which we test a lot. The seal stops it leaking in the future. This is a one use nut, which holds it onto a step axle. Over here some bearing grease, new bolts, and a flange. And all that comes in the kit, yeah? Bout all that comes in a kit so that hopefully there's no nasty surprises in there. You can do the job. Great stuff. Well, let's go over to the workshop and see Steve and Martin fittin' this kit up. So the Hub's now off the car, ready to change the bearings. Pop the rubber cap off the end of the dry flange and remove the circlet beneath. Behind that's a few shims, so you'll have to pull them off as well. Use a bar to lock the hubs steady while you undo the 17mm bolts holding the drive flange to the end of the hub and remove the dry flange. Under the dry flange, you'll see a large washer that will be staked over the outer wheel bearing nut. You need a sharp chisel to drive the washer flat, which will allow you to get a 52mm socket on the outer hub nut. Slacken the nut and remove the washer from behind it. It can be a bit fiddly, give it a bit of a lever with a screwdriver if needed. That will reveal the inner hub nut, which you then need to slacken off. With the inner hub nut removed. You will be able to withdraw the hub from the stub axle and set it on the work bench ready for work. Okay, so now we can start stripping the old bearings out of the hub. The outer one lifts out fairly easily, cause it's not held in with anything. On the inside of the hub, there's a seal which holds the inner bearing into place. So first of all, we're going to have to remove that seal in order to remove the bearing. It can be quite tight in the hub, so persevere. Okay, so with the seal out of the way, the inner bearing can be lifted out. Give the inside a bit of a clean just to make working a little bit easier. Once the hub seal has been removed, you can pull out the bearing race and then you'll see the inside edge of the bearing track that needs to be hit with a chisel or punch to drive the old bearing out of the hub. And there's not a lot of space here, so it's a good idea to have a really sharp chisel or punch to drive that out. That's the first one out. Now the hub can be flipped over and the other one can be removed. As you can see, Steve sort of, hitting opposite sides of the track to sort of walk it out of the hub. That's both the bearing tracks removed now so the new ones can be tapped into place after a quick clean. Just check for any burrs that might have cropped up when you were tapping the old tracks out; clean them up if necessary. So similar process, tapping the new ones in, to tapping the old ones out. If you've got a bearing installer, then it's a good idea to use that, but if not, the old bearing track is a handy tool to use; tap that home. It's really important that the, the track goes down evenly. If you feel it start to go tight, drift back out and start again. And you'll know when the track's home, because the sound that the hub makes when you're tapping it down will sound completely different. Steve just tapped out the old bearing track that we use to install the new one. A couple of, couple of hits gets that out and then the other side can be fitted. So that's both the bearing tracks fitted. The next step is to fit the new racers. But it's really important these are properly lubricated before they go in. Otherwise they won't last very long at all, and here's Fuzz to explain how to do that. Bearings. Vitally important components in your hub. And they need to be correctly lubricated. So the way that we do this is we get our grease and we pack it in through this top surface here. And what we have to do, squeeze it through till it squeezes through from the front all the way to the back. And you can see the little pips of grease coming through there. The reason we do that is because every moving surface of this bearing needs lubrication. Without it, it will prematurely wear. And we have to make sure that we get it absolutely everywhere. Just placing grease on the outside will lubricate it a little bit, but actually, it won't lubricate the inner race here. So here's how to do this job. Now, I actually learned to do this job on day one in a bus garage when I was 16. So I gave 'em a grease. Let's get the top off there. I'm going to squeeze a load of it out onto my glove. Like so. Leaving a little bit in there. What I'm going to do is push it in, just gently using my fingers to start with and just go around the bearing and then gradually squeeze and push that in. Now, eventually we should see some blobs of grease coming out in between the rollers at the bottom end. I'm just starting to see it all coming through. You have to try and make sure that the bottom of the bearing is nice and clean and grease-free when you're doing it so you can actually see the grease popping through. Now, if you look here, you can see the grease starting to squeeze out between the rollers. And that indicates that grease has passed all the way through, which means we've got full lubrication of this bearing. As I'm going, I'm just scraping bits of the grease off my fingers and then back around into the bearing. And as I work it all the way around, the grease disappears into the bearing. Okay, so now. So that's the entire bearing greased from the outside to the inside. Now what we finally need to do, just to finish it off, is just a smear the grease around the outer edges of the rollers. Let's just get that bit. And there we are. One completely greased bearing ready for fitting. Right. So now the bearings are greased. We can slot the inner bearing into its track in the back of the hub. Once that's in, the seal can be installed. Sometimes it's possible to just get it started with your fingers, make sure it goes in leveled. And then Steve's gonna use one of the old bearing tracks to drift into place. Now that the hub seal's fitted, we can flip the hub back over, put the new outer bearing race in place, along with the washer. And now the hub can be lifted back onto the stub axle, and we can set the bearing up. The hub is slid onto the stub axle. It's a good idea to hold the outer bearing in place with your thumbs so that it doesn't try and push out as you slide the hub home. Once it's in place, you can install the inner adjustment nut. Tighten up the inner nut to settle the bearing to give the hub a bit of a spin to make sure everything's moving nicely. From there, the inner nut can be backed off until there is no free plate in the hub, but it still spins nicely. Now that the inner nut is set correctly and the bearings adjusted, the stake washer can be slid into place and the outer nut tightened up. Next, the stake washer needs to be bent both ways over the outer nut and across the inner nut. Make sure nothing loosens off. Just rechecking to make sure the hub spins freely with no play. And from there, the dry flange can be refitted along with the brake caliper and the brake system can be bled. Alright, Steve's just finishing up the rebuild. So for more hints and tips on how to work on your Land Rover, check out the other videos in the Britpart Workshop series.