i am considering buying a small shop press for my garage (<10ton).....how many tons of pressure is required to remove the rear axle bearings? TIA

 

None.

Cut them off. Much easier.

Just cut most of the way through and use a slightly blunt chisel to crack 'em apart. Then slide them off.

 

you will need the press to install the new ones, but as peejay said cut them off. You won't be able to press them off easily as the brake backing plate is in the way. I just did this the other day, a cutoff wheel is your friend.

 

ok how much pressure is needed to install them then?

 

FSM says it should take no less than 6 tons to install the retainer ring.

A 12 ton press we had at work had *no* problems installing new bearing/retainer.

 

found a 12ton for 125. it would be a nice edition to my tool collection but since i need to be efficient money wise and im not gonna need a press for the rest of the car ill just take the axle and new bearings to a shop. thanks for the info tho

 

well cut/ deeply score the retainer and tap it... it will pop apart. i didnt know this and bent a axel with my 80 ton press... opps

 

80 ton? **** thats crazy.

 

Would one of these help?
Bearing Separator

 

to install the new ones yes, but you can't get it around the bearings cause the brake backing plate is in the way (which is held on by the bearings basically) so theres no room. As stated earlier use a cutoff wheel to cut most of the way through the bearing and retainer then smack them off with a hammer and cold chisel. Getting the old ones off is a half hour job at most (once the axles are out of the rear end that is)

 

my local rx7 shop cuts the old axel bearings off then to put new ones on, the slides the bearing on the axel. slides a big pipe over the axel and slams the pipe down till bearing pressed on axel.

still have those bearings in my car 8 years later