packing wheel bearings
 

hey i got a 78 k5 and ive been told i should pack my wheel bearings..i just got it a few months ago and wanna take it out muddin and dont know when the last time it was done can anyone explain it to me or set me up with a link somewhere that te;;s me how too i wanna do it tomarrow so any advice would be great

You should only have to pack the front wheel bearings when you first put them in. After that, no real maintenance is required. If you are replacing them, then yes, you need to pack them.

If you want to do it again, you will have to remove the front wheels, the brake caliper, the lockout hub, and then the spindle nut (requires special 4 pronged socket). Once that is off, you should be able to pull the wheel hub / brake rotor assembly off of the spindle. The inner & outer wheel bearings will be inside the hub. You will have to pop off the dust seal on the back of the hub to remove the inner bearing.

I don't know if you're still tryin' to get this done, but I just got done taking my hub and crap off myself. When you get your locking hub parts out, theres that 4-pronged bolt that Swartlkk was talkin' about, then theres an annoying lock ring with a bunch of holes in it, that has to come out. If your fingers are too big, you can stick a magnet in there and pull it out, then theres another nut with 4 prongs on it, but this one has a small stud at the top of it for one of the holes on that lock ring to grab on to. After you get this off, you should be able to see your outter bearing and get it out, or if you want you can go ahead and pull the whole brake rotor and hub off and it'll slide with it. On the other side of your hub, on the inside of your brake rotor, there's a dust seal thats put in there pretty hard, you're gonna have to get something to yank it out, and you'll have to get a new one, cause you will tear the old one up. Now you should be able to get your inner bearing out. I took this time to use some diesel and a tooth brush and brush all the nasty crappy gunked up old grease that was on my bearing races (the things that the bearings sit in) and make them nice and smooth again.

I'd opt to clean the entire thing out and add new grease to the whole thing at this point. Once you have your bearings out, grease them up nice and good, make sure you get grease all over the insides of the bearings, all over the sides, but it doesn't have to be a very thick film, just enough that it's all covered. Then you'll wanna add grease (5 pumps or so if you're usin' a gun) to the inside of the hub between where your bearings sit.

Now slide your inner bearing in, and you should be able to tell which way it goes because the sides are at a 30 degree angle, take your new dust seal, place it as best you can on your hub, and take a small hammer and lightly tap around it in a circle 'til it's in. Slide your hub with the brake roter on, the inner bearing in, and the dust seal back over your axle cover, then slide your outter bearing in afterword and get it up in where it belongs. Take that 4 pronged bolt with the stud at the top (make sure that's facing out towards you) and tighten that down. I've never known a real torque value for it, but what everyone tells me is about a quarter turn under hand tight. After that's tight, put your lock ring back on, get the stud in one of the holes, and put your other 4 pronged nut back in and torque it down as hard as you can by hand. Now put your locking hub stuff back in, and you're good to go. :icon_urinal:

If I messed up on any of this, please feel free to let me know.

I repack my Wheel Bearings every 100K miles. on my '85 full sized Pickup
Change the Rear Diff fluid at the same time. It makes me feel better not to mention a visual inspection helps anticipate a problem.. No rear or Bearing issues in 300K miles.