I had to replace my hub assemble this weekend. Thought of you all and took a few pics. My wife thinks I am nuts for taking the pics, however I told her you guys would want to see them.

First stop, a quailty hub assemble. This unit is made by Timken. IMHO Timken makes the best bearings. This unit costs $182 at my local Autozone. They carry less costly units if your interested. This unit also has a new ABS sensor and a new ABS wire with harness.



Break the lug nuts loose, unless you have air tools.
Jack the truck up and place a jack stand under it.
To test the bearings, wobble the tire back and forth and up and down. rotate it too. If your reading this, no doubt someone has told you you need to replace the hub assemble. SO I will skip the rest of the diagnostics.

Jack stands in place?
Take the tire off.



You will have to take the brake caliper off. GM uses both torx bits and regular bolts to hold the caliper on, make sure you have the right tool for the job. Also take the brake caliper bracket off and disconnect the ABS sensor wireing. I had to turn my steering wheel to gain access to the top brake caliper bracket bolt.



Use a 36mm socket and take the cv axle nut off. I took my time here. I sprayed the threads with PB Blaster, unscrewed it some, sprayed and screwed it back on. Sprayed some more and unscrewed it some more. I would sparay on both sides of the nut to help clean all the rust off. You'll notice I still haven't removed the brakes yet.



Notice the washer behind the nut.


18mm wrench is what you need to remove the three bolts holding the hub asemble in place. I don't have a 18mm wrench so I used a socket with a wrench adapter. You could also use a 18mm wobble socket, however I dont have one of those either. Thought I did, but couldn't find it.



To gain extra leverage you can stack wrenches. Carefull, you can bust some knuckles if they slip. Notice the wire holding my brake caliper in the air. Never let your calipers hang by the brake hose. Also notice the ABS snesor wire laying on the ground. I had to remove three bolts to get it free, and there is a quick pin on the bottom of thw wiring harness that stubs into the frame to hold the connector in place behind the rubber splash shield.


Once the three bolts are out. Beat on the cv axle with a hammer to loosen it and drive it back some. PB Blaster sprayed on both sides helps break the rust bond between the hub and shaft. Now take a cold chisel and drive it between the hub assemble and the steering knuckle. It will pop the hub assemble out.


Hub assemble removed.


Mine has a rubber gasket around the hub assemble. I put it on the new unit, my thumb is on it in the pic. I fought with that thing and wish I would have left it off.



Installation is reverse of removeal. Dont forget the dust shield.
That pretty well covers it.
Post up thoise questions.

A couple of membersmade some recommendations.
Use anti-seize on the cv axle splines where it mates with the hub assemble.
Useanti-seize on the

 

In case your wondering.
The truck has 130,000 miles on it. It still has all the original ball joints, you can see the top one in the pic. Notice the rivets instead of bolts holding it in place. Actually the truck has all the original everything except for that hub assemble and the tranny was rebuilt 10 months ago.

I bought the hub assemble last summer. I heard all the stories about how hte hub assembles fail early. So I bought one when I had some extra coin and they were on sale.6 months later, the old hub assemble would still be on there, except I picked up a nasty wobble in my steering wheel couple ofdays after the snow storm. I figuredall the driving around on the ice and pushing poeple around all day in the snow finally did a bearing in. NOPE.AFTER I replaced the hub assembleI was rolling my tire back so I could put it back on the truck. My hand felt a bump on the tire andI was like oh crap. I knew right then I could have saved myself 2 hours worth of work had I stuck to the basics first and checked my tires.I busted a belt in my tire.Fortunately the 30" BFG All-Terrains are on sale now at my local tire shop. I paid $125 each, plus all the extras.The good isI was planning on replaceing the fronts in 2-3 months anyway. The backs were replacedlast spring.

One other thing. For those of you with keen eyes who noticed I was missing a nut on top of my anti-sway bar. Good job!!!!
I noticed it while I was greasing up my ball joints.

 

Probably could have coated the rubber gasket with grease and set it into the hole the axle was protruding from, it looks like there was a groove machined in the mounting surface for the gasket and it would not have mucked around falling off of the new hub....LoL (look into the photo wear the rubber gasket is laying on the axle)

 

Hanr3, you should just start up a Blazer repair school!
Good post.
My only question is ( quote, "I fought with that thing and wish I would have left it off.") Are you talking about the "O" ring? I just use a little vaseline or silicone dielectric when I have to asseble stuff with rubber "O" rings

 

This post should be redone and place in the DIY section.

Nice write up on it, I would had put some anti-sez on the axle shaft when putting it back together. It holds so much moisture in there its very prone to rust and sometime lock in place. Also should add to disconnect the ABS line before attmepting to pull things appart. I have found so many that have snapped those wires due to they don't do that first. Also adding anti-sez to the Torque bolts that hold the bearing assembly in place (only 3 of them).

 

This post will be placed in the DIY section, but what do you think needs to be redone?

 

Just redone due to most in the How-To section don't have added replys under them.

That is all

 

Oh ok. That's what I do when I put them in there. I like to leave them here in the general section so anything that is unclear or needs changing/updating can occur before I put them into the DIY section.

 

That is great, but will help those looking for a quick read to find it in the How-to section, can just add a note to it saying active thread in General if have questions

 

I already had that thought and was trying to implement a sub-section of the DIY section for comments/concerns about the DIY articles. This sub-section would be for article submissions as well as any changes to current articles. We just have to work out the details.

Great write-up Tim! Sorry for travelling offtopic a bit.. I'll get it cleaned up and placed in the DIY section when I get a chance.