megane rear wheel bearings query

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Fri 15 Oct 2004 23:05
megane rear wheel bearings query - allan doc
I'm going to change one of my rear wheel bearings in my 97 megane coupe and want to know if i need any special tools to do this. i've done this before on a fiesta and i've looked at the haynes manual and it all looks straight forward, but from my experience theres always something that proves difficult. Any advice would be great.
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Fri 15 Oct 2004 23:45
megane rear wheel bearings query - Civic8
I would suggest replacing both. if one has gone the other won`t be far behind..Never replace one bearing at a time/always in pairs. front or rear
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Steve
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Sat 16 Oct 2004 14:06
megane rear wheel bearings query - Number_Cruncher
I've copied this from an earlier discussion of wheel bearings on a VW Passat. It may explain a little more about the statistical nature of bearing failure.

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Widely varying bearing life is an interesting quirk of the contact mechanics of rolling element bearings. Oddly, the rolling contact fatigue all goes on under the surface, and it is only when a crack propagates to the surface that you get a noticeably noisy bearing.

Because the initiation of fatigue cracks is very dependant on micro scale material properties, it can't be predicted in a deterministic way. There is, thus, a degree of statistical variation.

They are chosen by manufacturers, considering loading, to an "L10" life, which 90% of bearings should exceed. So, if you are unlucky, your wheel bearings are in the 10% which fail early. Rarely, this can be very early! If you are lucky, your bearing will last for much longer than the L10 life.

The SKF Bearings website is an excellent resource for general bearing design, mounting and use tips - www.skf.com/

number_cruncher

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Mon 18 Oct 2004 10:36
megane rear wheel bearings query - davemar
I semi did the job myself, as there is an easy bit and a hard bit. The easy bit is removing the rear hub, the hard bit is removing the bearing from the hub and replacing it with a new one. Do to this you'll really need a hydraulic press (not your usual DIY tool I would imagine!), so this is something a garage will have. So maybe your best bet is too remove the hub yourself, and take it your local garage and get the to swap the bearing over. This will take them a few minutes, so just pop them some beer tokens, and save yourself a load of money for the full job.
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