When you start to hear a speed related groan from your front end, it could be a wheel bearing. The groan sounds something like the following, and braking doesn't really seem to affect the sound, but low sweeping corners at speed will make it go quieter.
1. New wheel bearing
2. Dust cover
3. Brake caliper removed
4. Top caliper bolt
5. Wire to hold caliper out of the way
6. Old wheel bearing
7. 36mm socket
8. 15mm spanner for caliper
9. Breaker bar steel tube
There are some good youtube videos about changing your BF Falcon front wheel bearings so I don't need to repeat much here. The bearing comes as an assembly ready to slip onto the old-school stub axle complete with the studs that the wheel bolts up to. So you can pay a lot for these - or - order them online from an auto wholesaler to save some cash. The good thing about bearings is that you can continue driving for weeks or even months, so you have time for delivery.
You need a 36mm socket, which the average punter won't have in his kit. You may need a bearing puller, if the bearing assembly has rusted to your stub axle it won't come off easily. I ordered a puller, they are cheap, but I didn't end up needing it. My shopping list was ($AUD2024)75 for two bearings, 20 for the socket and 12 for a puller.
The process:
- Put car on axle stands, take wheel off.
- The whole brake caliper assembly is held on with two 15mm bolts from the back. The top bolt access is obscured by the brake line, you are supposed to be able to pop the brake line out but mine wouldn't budge. By the time I was using big flat blade screwdrivers and hammers I was worried about damaging the brake line. So I used a ring spanner and spent 10 minutes undoing the bolt 1/12th turn at a time, and the 10 minutes putting it back in...
- Wiggle the caliper assembly off the disk rotor, and with a piece of fencing wire hang it up on the suspension spring or somewhere so that the rubber brake line is not under tension. Don't damage the rubber brake line, be careful.
- Remove the disk rotor.
- Pop the dust cover off with some screwdrivers and some light tapping.
- With a big bit of steel tube undo the wierd looking 36mm nut.
- Pull/wrangle the bearing assembly off. Mine came off pretty easy, hopefully you have the same experience. If the rear bearing outer race stays behind on the stub axle, use a puller or big screwdrivers to wrestle it off. I hope you don't have to resort to the angle grinder...don't nick anything.
- Give the stub axle a quick linish with super fine sandpaper to take off any rust.
- Push the bearing on, it will be tight at first, but will end up pretty easy to get on.
- Put the weird 36mm nut back on and do it up exceptionally tight. It is supposed to be around 300Nm, but my torque wrench doesn't go that high, so I leant on my big bit of steel tube to make it super tight.
- Pop the disk rotor back on - tip - put one or two wheel nuts back on finger tight so it doesn't move for the next step.
- Wrangle the caliper back on. I found I needed to put a clamp on the piston and push it back in a bit to get the caliper back over the rotor.
- Wiggle the caliper around until you get the bolt holes to line up, and do them up nice and tight too.
- Wheel back on, take it for a drive, and relax that it is all quiet again.
It was pretty obvious that mine was the passenger side, I could have done the drivers side while I was there, but I decided not to - I now have a spare bearing in case this new one fails prematurely, or if the drivers side one goes as well. Mine was groaning for around 2 months, so you don't have to rush to this job.
Good luck out there!
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