Audi wheel bearing job.

I made a stab at my wheel bearing. It was noisy, but not bad. The part that freaked me out about it enough to fix it was that I could feel a bit of a notchiness (is that a word?) at the steering wheel and through the pedals.

So, I bought a new wheel bearing to attempt a DIY repair.

Oh, and the lower control arms are groaning at the ball joints. So, I got a new control arm kit. But, nobody had a deal on just the lowers, so I got the whole set. Oh, and there’s more: Turns out Audi (and many other cars today) use one-time-use stretch bolts… only source: the Audi (st)(d)ealership. Dang, the bolts alone for the wheel bearing, the driveshaft bolt and brake caliper bolts ran close to $50 for 7 bolts.

I take a day off of work, get started, and I realize I forgot a couple parts at home. Wups. Go back, find the wife and her car (cause that’s where I left them) and by the time I ate lunch and got the car on jack stands, it’s 1:00.

I never figured out which side was actually bad, but my best guess was the driver’s side. I get that side apart, pull the bearing out, and it feels perfectly buttery smooth. Rats! so I put it back. It’s 2:30 now. Well, at least it wasn’t that tough to do.

I pull the other side apart, get the bearing out… feels the same. Double Rats!! This one is making a bit of a rattling noise inside. Maybe it’s just worn out of tolerance.

I get the hub/bearing/flange assembly on the bench, apply the hub puller and get it apart. The hub (where the disc brake rotor and wheel bolt on) is pressed into the other part, the wheel bearing/flange (which bolts to the knuckle of the car). I had to put it in a puller, pop the two apart, and then pull the inner bearing race off the hub. That took a while, probably about 45 minutes of heavy pulling on a jury-rigged kinda setup. But, it worked. Then I had to chisel off the inner bearing race from the hub. This is the part I was fearing most. I read stories on the Audi message boards of that part being fused solid to the hub on cars from snowy areas where they salt the roads. Turns out, it popped off with a about 5 minutes of tapping at it with a hammer and chisel. It was not unlike removing a headset crown race from a bicycle fork.

Pop!

I inspect the innards of the bearing, and it’s as smooth as can be. No signs of pitting, wear or grooves of any kind. It wasn’t exactly awash in grease, tho. Dang. I was hoping to find an obvious source of the noise. The main problem is that the old bearing is destroyed in removing the hub, so I was pretty much committed to the new one at this point. I hope I just didn’t waste my time.

Then, I pressed it all back together. I ended up using part of an electrical knock out tool kit from the shop. I was going to use the shop vise, but a ball peen hammer and that knock out kit part worked well just tapping it back together. Again, like a bicycle headset.

It’s about 5:00 at this pont.

I start putting it all back together. It actually went pretty quickly. Done in maybe an hour or so. But… dang! Those bolts have to be crazy tight. Like, the brake bolts need to be 140 ft pounds plus an extra quarter turn. The main driveshaft bolt needed to be tightened to 14o Ft. Pounds plus another 180 degree twist. I took the longest breaker handle I could find… about 4 feet long, and used all my might to get it cranked on. I was seriously worried I would break the tool off in the 17mm allen bolt.

At this point, it’s around 6:00, and  I still need to clean up. I gave up on the idea of doing the control arms at this stage. I would have been there all night if I started that job, and if I got stuck, I would have had to spend the night there. No thanks, some other time.

I get it all back together, put the belly pan back on (which was probably the hardest thing of all), get it off the jack stands, and go for a drive.

Noise… still there!! GGGRRRR. Okay, it wasn’t as bad as before, and I dont feel the notchiness like before. My only theory is that both wheel bearings were bad or worn out of spec.

On the plus side, I found this to not be so bad to work on. All the bolts are easy to get to, nothing was badly stuck. My only real complaint is that Audi uses expensive single use stretch bolts.

It occurred to me after all this… you know… I actually have all the repair records on this car. If I was less lazy, I would have looked it up to see if the bearing had been done before, and if so, which side?

On a side note, on the way home, my car hit 111,111 miles.

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