how hard is it to replace a blowen wheel bearing it is on the front left

 

Well that depend's on how it failed...Take mine for example the bearing's grenaded themselves and like a cheap joe i drove it about 500 miles. I went to autozone and got the outer bearing which was like 7$ and the inner bearing which was like 20$. You have to take the caliper,rotor,and the a-arm off. Dont disconect the brake lines from the caliper just hang it on the strut, Anyway turn's out the inner race welded itself onto the spindal and i could not get it off i tried everything!! Finally i had to very carefully cut it off with a grinder. If the race would have come off easily it would have been an easy job. but it took all day your going to need some axle grease too. I think there is a write-up in the archives somewere dont i dont remember?

 

On the fronts, I had to grind notches to knock out the races (thank you, mazda) for replacement/packing. One was just repacked, the other completely replaced due to corrosion.

 

http://www.mazdatrix.com/faq/frontbrg.htm

 

you can do this with hand tools and a dremel that has a grinding bit.
pretty easy stuff.
time consuming but easy.

 

lol same crap happend to me, failed on me driving straight down rolling and i pulled over about 10 seconds after it happend, the wheel bearing/spindel was smoking.... so yea, found out when i got it towed back to my house after going through hell to take off the caliper and all that good stuff that my bearing was heat sized to the spindel. my dad said i just need to have someone blow some heat on it and carefully chizzle or yank it off without damaging the spindel. but replace ment parts are reall cheap, i got the inner bearing, outer bearing, seal, and grease for 40 bucks at advanced auto parts. good luck with it, hope its not siezed. otherwise they should slide off without a problem, pack ur new bearings real hard with grease and put dem jyanks back in. good luck.

~ Mike.

 

For those that run into this Problem of replacing there wheel bearings, I have a simple solution. Take the hub itself and stick it into s oven at 350deg for about 10-15 minutes. This will allow the aluminum to expand and the race should just slide out. You might need to to tap the hup itself on the ground.

To put the new race in just heat the hub up again at the same time put the race in the freezer for 15-20 minutes. This will shrink the race slightly and expand the hub slightly allowing both to go together very easly. You might have to tap it into its final place, but this does take a lot less work than to grind it out.

 

be sure to look at the spindle, mine went, and took out the spindle as well. My experience was similiar to fc. fanatic's. Since your tearing into it, remove the spindle and get it bead blasted to make it nice and pretty