I couldn't find a DIY on a rear wheel bearing so I thought I'd throw some quick pics up.....not very detailed as this job is pretty much like any press out bearing you've ever done.




So its a pretty typical press in/out. Use a front wheel drive hub puller and a slide hammer to get the stub off. I used a hub tamer you can borrow from most parts stores to do the bearing so guys that don't have access to a press can see one of those work. Just remove the caliper and rotor. I only loosened the caliper mounting bracket and the rotor slid by.



Getting the snap ring out stinks. Keep at it, it will come. Now get the axle out. I had to take the hub free from the lower control arm to get it out.



Here's the hub off so you can see the back where you situate the tool to pull the bearing out. You don't need to remove it using the hub tamer. With it totally off it would be just as easy to put it in the press, if you have one.



Hub tamer in place. Tighten the nut to pull the old bearing out, then the tool gets swapped around to pull the new bearing in from the other side. Re-assemble opposite of disassembly.



Random mid-job pic.

 

Good write-up. Do you happen to have a torque spec for the axle retaining nut?


BTW, what were the symptoms of the bearing going bad? I recently noticed a faint "rotational sounding" noise, on our XF, that goes away as soon as I touch the brake pedal, then returns when I get off the brake. Hoping it's nothing serious.

 

Nice work man!

I'm planning on doing this when I replace all the bushes with powerflex and change out the diff bushes. But I need a lift for that and the previous DIY shop I used closed down.

 

300 Nm (221 ft lbs) according to the service manual (attached).

If the noise changes with speed and stops when you "hold the wheel straight" with brakes, then a wheel bearing is a likely contender.

 

Yeah, I had the grinding noise and ignored it a few days. It turned into a very distinct and urgent "clicking" sound.

 

Dave, thanks for posting the information. There do seem to be a LOT of "special tools" involved, at least in the factory's description of the job.


At this point, the noise I was hearing wasn't a "grinding" noise, more of a "p-fft, p-fft", kind of sound, like a light sort of rubbing. I'm hoping that it isn't serious, and meaning that this car is going to turn into a "money pit". I know that driving a car through north-eastern US winters, and the related road salt, certainly takes it's toll on the car, and this car has now been through 6 winters, but it only has 38,000 miles on it...

However, if it's indeed a wheel bearing, better I take care of it now, while the newer Jag is on the road for the summer, and I have the time to mess with this one, to get it ready for daily use, in a few months.

 

I had a noise like you describe and it was just the dust shield if you haven't tried pushing that back.

 

Thanks for the "heads up"...I'll check that out. I was also thinking that just maybe, it could be just a little "crud" that built up on the outer edge of the rotor.

 

That's true, but a lot of the special tools in the service manual can just be replaced with a universal tool. It might have a xxx-xxx part number like it's some special Ford/Jaguar tool, but there's only a few cases I've had to purchase them - and even then, it seems others have succeeded without the special tools. Case in point - @wesmc appears to have completed the job just fine without any of these specific tools

 

Just a follow up....

I took off the rear wheels, and looked things over, but found nothing out of the ordinary. I did, however, notice that the brake pads were down to about 30% thickness, as we all know that XFs wear our brake pads at a fairly prodigious rate, compared to the fronts. The pads had about 14-15,000 miles on them, so I decided to replace them now, rather than try to squeeze another 4-5000 out of them and have issues in the dead of winter.

I ordered another set of pads (Powerstop ceramics), and pulled the rotors off. As expected, the rotors had a fair amount of "crud" around the inner and outer perimeter, where the pads don't touch. I used my "California brake lathe" (a disc sander) to clean off the crud, scuffed the contact area with some sandpaper, and re-assembled everything. I then went out for both a test ride, as well as a "brake bed-in session". Long story short, it appears that my noise is gone....so far!