X100 rear wheel bearing install

Well here is my attempt of a walk through to change the rear wheel bearings on a 2006 Jaguar XK8. My right rear has started to howl as of recently, so I figured with over 100,000 miles, it may be time to replace them. I couldn't find a write up with pictures on our side of the forum. Donb has a good write up for the x300, and while quite similar, there are a few differences. Plus there is always more than one way to skin a cat.

Parts needed (cost ~$130):
Inner and outer wheel bearings (I chose Timkin bearings and races, part numbers are):
LM503310 (outer wheel race)
LM503349A (outer wheel bearing)
SET45 (inner wheel bearing and race)
Bearing grease (again, Timken brand)
2 one time use hub nuts (Jaguar PN: JZN100035)
2 zip ties

Tools needed:
1 3/16" and 1 1/4" socket (preferably deep socket, though regular size will work)
1/2" breaker bar with extra pipe if the going gets tough
1 1/16" socket
11/16" wrench
7/8" wrench
8mm wrench
15mm wrench
Needle nose pliers
Screwdriver
Box cutter
3 lb hammer
Torque wrench
Bearing driver kit
Shop press
Jack and stands
Wheel chocks
Your brain (optional, but may be easier with it...I tried to without but it didn't work so well)
Lots of orange hand cleaner (also optional if single, probably more mandatory if married and you want to keep it that way)


First, is safety first. When you jack up the rear of the car, be sure the front wheels are properly blocked and jack stands are used in the rear. Apply the emergency brake.

Loosen lug nuts on rear wheels and take off wheels.






Using a 1 1/16" socket on a breaker bar, loosen the hub nuts.

Release the emergency brake.

If you plan on taking the emergency brake off of the hub assembly (I did as I didn't want to bend the components or have anything fall off and get lost while working on the bearings), you will want to take off the emergency brake from underneath the car. Crawl underneath the car and disconnect the "Y" bend in the emergency brake line (it sits in front of the rear differential/sub frame). This will entail 1) loosening the main nut right at the "Y" bend (I marked the bolt it is threaded onto so it was adjusted properly when put back together)

2) disconnecting the coupler in the emergency line (it is made to just pull the line through) and

3) disconnecting the 2 "C" clips on the sub frame using a screwdriver.

The other way you can do it is you can take the emergency brake off by popping off the plastic coupler (seen lying on your back and looking upwards at the hub assembly) and then releasing the pin in the emergency brake near the brake shoes inside the hub assembly (you will obviously need to take the brake rotor off for this). I did not try this way but it is said to be a bit harder.

Unscrew the hub nut and the entire assembly will now flop forward. Be careful not to let it fall too hard too far forward as you still have the ABS and brake lines connected.

Using the 8mm wrench, unscrew the ABS sensor on top of the housing. Cut the zip tie that secures the ABS wire to the housing. Now is a good time to clean your ABS sensor if dirty.

Dirty ABS sensor...

Clean ABS sensor...

Unbolt the two 15mm bolts on the back of the caliper. Pull the caliper off the rotor and either hang the assembly with a hanger or set on a raised object like a box so it does not put strain on the brake line. Now would be a good time to check for brake pad wear. If you are lucky, the hub assembly will slide right out at this point like one side of mine did. If you are not so lucky, like my other side, the hub will stay on and you will need to persuade it off later.

Using a marker, mark the position of the fulcrum shaft head (rearmost bolt head on the lower bushing assembly) so you can save the alignment setting. Using an 11/16" wrench for one side, and a 7/8" wrench for the other, loosen the fulcrum shaft bolt and pull out while supporting the entire assembly as it will fall to the ground.

Take the entire assembly and support it from the rotor, face up. I used some 2x4's I had laying around. Taking another 2x4, lay it across the top of the wheel studs and strike the board with a mallet. The rotor will come free of the hub assembly.

Take off the emergency brake components. There are two springs holding the shoes together, two pins with springs securing the shoes to the dust shield, and a very small pin holding on the lower linkage to the cable. I found needle nose pliers worked best for all of this.

If your ABS gear like wheel has not come out, you should be able to pull it it off the back of the hub by hand. If it is frozen on, go to the next step.

If your bearings are frozen on your hub, flip the unit upside down, and still supporting it with 2x4's (on the cast assembly, don't support from the dust shield) place a 1 3/16" or 1 1/4" (depending on the brand) on the uppermost (inner) wheel bearing face. Using your mallet (or a sledge hammer, whatever your preference), strike the socket downwards to drive the hub out of the face of the assembly. It took a number of good blows to get one of mine to free up.

Using a press with the proper bearing tool, press out the races from the hub assembly. You can also drive out the races using a mallet and a cold chisel or punch. There is a key way inside the assembly to make this easier. The bearings themselves just slid off of the hub shaft.

Clean out the entire assembly, including the bearing seals if you are reusing. The bearing seals have very small "O" shaped spring hidden inside each of them, don't lose them.

Pack your new bearings and races with grease. I was pretty liberal with the grease and even assembled the unit, hand spun the hub for a minute, and pulled the bearings back out to repack any loose spots. Slide them on in the correct order (they only fit on the races and hub shaft one way). Be sure you included the two spacers in between the bearings (one wide and one very skinny in mine).

Insert the hub into the unit and place the inner bearing and seal on. Add the ABS wheel inside (I cleaned parts like this with a toothbrush prior to reassembly).

I pulled out the lower bushings and cleaned and repacked them with grease. I wasn't too concerned with wear but figured they could use a freshening up.

Put the emergency brake back on the hub. Connect the cable back to the linkage using the small pin. I found it easier to leave the bottom spring on and "fold" the lower portion onto the assembly. Then pull apart the upper part and install the adjustment mechanism. I then placed the top spring on with needle nose pliers. Lastly, take the two pins with springs and secure the brakes onto the dust shield. The rubber seal on the backside that slides along the emergency brake cable housing was difficult to press back in. Just dab some grease on it and it will slide right into position. Slide the brake rotor on over this.

Install the complete unit back on the car in reverse order. First the lower fulcrum bolt and nut and tighten to 88-118 newton meters (64-87lb/ft). Tighten the caliper bolts and ABS sensor. Finish off and torque the hub nut to 304-336 newton meters (224-247lb/ft). Don't forget to reconnect the emergency brake underneath! Reinstall the wheel and take for a test drive!

This entire process can and has been done without a shop press. I didn't get one until half way through the process. I wish I would have started out with it. It made the press work so much easier. After comparing the Harbor Freight press with others ranging $700-1200 (and my wife's eyes bugging just a little bit), I found a HF 20 ton press for $150 with bearing tools on Craigslist that had only been used once for, you guessed it, a bearing job. It is not a press for precision work, but it certainly made pressing races in and out a heck of a lot easier!

I originally bought a bunch of tools in gearing up for this job, including a nice screw type hub puller and a bearing press kit that can be used while the hub is in place. Do yourself a favor and don't. Hub pullers don't work for the rear hubs due to how they are fastened on. I broke a 1/2" ratchet before I realized I was working against myself. Also managed to break a pry bar when trying to pry the hub off.

My recommendation would be to skip it all and go buy a press. I know it will probably only get used once every ten years, but it's sure a lot cheaper than paying a shop to do all the work, and you can do it on a weekend when everyone else is closed. Speaking of which, I probably called over ten shops with each one telling me they wouldn't touch it and that they didn't have recommendations for who to do it. Does nobody press wheel bearings anymore?

After I took both hub assemblies off I found the spindle that the hub nut screws on had mild surface rust on the bearing side that was making noise, whereas there was not rust on the opposite spindle. After investigating further I found a small bump and crack in the inner wheel bearing seal of the problem hub/spindle. It looks like that was where the small amount of water made it through and possibly caused the bearing to wear prematurely. I ordered a seal to replace that one. Seals are cheap ($7-11 per seal) so it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to replace them all, though I didn't. Here are pictures of both spindles, and the problem bearing seal:

Here are the hubs side by side for comparison. The problem side is pitted on part of it, though not exactly where the bearing sits. The good hub is smooth and the bearing slide on and off with relative ease. The pitted one, oddly enough, is actually ridged up and thicker where the bearings sit, where you might expect them to be thinner from wear. This was the cause of the bearings sticking and the hub not coming free. I took some 220 grit sandpaper and lightly sanded down the hub shaft where the bearings were having a hard time seating. I still had to persuade the inner bearing on with a mallet, but it fit better. I'm guessing one of the hubs was replaced at some point in its life as each side looked and fit a little different with the bearings.

I didn't know the hub nuts were one time use only, as they have a coiled wire inside the nut that acts as a locking washer. I was dead in the water for a bit while I waited on those to put it back together. I also had a bear of a time getting the bearing off of the hub until I figured out how to support it and use a socket and mallet from the back side. I had been trying to strike the back side of the hub plate with a mallet and even used a punch but couldn't get a decent enough angle on it to be effective.

Whichever way you do it, I hope this "how to" will help someone out down the road. I sure learned a lot from doing it and would have found it helpful to read a step by step to avoid some of my mistakes.



EDIT: MAY HAVE TO ADDRESS PICS THIS WEEKEND. I DIDNT REALIZE PHOTOBUCKET WILL NOT ALLOW THIRD PARTY HOSTING.

Tips on how to upload photos easily without using an online server would be greatly appreciated. I can attach them but hey will all be at the bottom of the post and not in order.

Edit again: sorry for the wait...lools like Ill be attaching the poctures to a PDF and then posting this weekend.

 

ChillyPhilly, Wow Nice Job! I appreciate the step by step, I've got a rear bearing replacement coming in the near future too. This will be invaluable.

Looking forward to the photos.

Just thought of 2 questions:

1) Hey from what you've seen, how much time should be budgeted for this job (1 wheel)?
2) Just want to be sure - one does not need the special Jaguar ABS tool for this job in the rear right?

Perhaps the moderators would like to post this in the sticky section? I'm not sure what qualifies articles like this to be permanent in that section but this one seems pretty darn comprehensive.

John

 

Hi John, glad you found the thread useful.

1) I've heard you can do it in two hours per wheel. Once I got through the stubborn one I probably spent over 4 hours on the other one taking my time. I like to inspect everything, re grease as needed, and really just handle the parts and see how they fit together to see if there is a better/easier way to repair things.

2) No ABS tool needed. The rear ABS ring is not threaded, it is more or less pressed on the hub shaft. One of the ABS wheels slipped right off, the other I had to drive the hub shaft out to get it off.

 

I think you missed a step there. Assemble dry and check the end float with a dial gauge. You may be lucky and the end float was spot on before and the new bearings were exactly dimensionally the same as the old. Otherwise you will have too much play and it will fail the vehicle test or not enough and your bearings will be toast.

 

Agreed, kudos to CP for a nice step by step. The write up by Don B is for an early XJ sedan, found in albums 86 – 89 here: Welcome to Jag-lovers - The Members' Photo Album


The few minor differences between the XJ and XK that I recall are the ABS wheel and parking brake equalizer configurations. That, and you can leave the drive axles bolted to the diff. Chillyphilly covered the need to mark the position of the fulcrum bolt eccentric. Otherwise Don’s photos and procedure are good to go for the XK8/R.


Note that the Jaguar workshop manual says the brake caliper mounting bolts are one-use-only, so don’t forget to buy 4 per axle. Hey, it’s one of the few times when you can go to the Jag dealer and buy something for this car for only $4!



The workshop manual available in the sticky section of this forum covers rear wheel bearings on pp. 173 -194 of the PDF http://www.mediafire.com/view/0iiiuu...ed_in_2003.pdf


When you do this project, consider repacking the two bearings in the hub carrier for the fulcrum bolt aka pivot pin. Just keep track of the washers/spacers on that bolt.

 

After doing this job, I can look back and see what great instructions these are. I'm adding a couple of points I pondered over to help.

1) the hub is not in the carrier all that tightly. Heck, I'd just done the fronts, they require many tons of pressure to install or remove. This hub came out with the help of a 3 pound hammer from the rear.

2) before you remove the hub, grab a caliper and measure how much it protrudes in the rear. This will help you know all is ok on reassembly. It sure looks short when you get there.

3) after you remove the ABS ring verify there is a rubber seal underneath it. You'll understand why when you reassemble. It boggles the mind to think the ABS ring is going to turn properly.

4) you do not need to disassemble the emergency brake components. You will however need to provide slack in the brake cable. Go to the ebrakes Y connector and loosen the adjustment nut as much as possible without removing it. I took the time before hand to measure it's position with a micrometer before loosening. Figured this would make reassembly easy, turns out it was unnecessary. 15 years of travel left a crystal clear map of where that nut rested.

Once loose, remove the cable from the Y connector. Now you have a cable that terminates in each side's e brake. There is a slip collar connector close to the center of the car joining these cables. Remove the side you are working on from this collar.

Come prepared with a few flat blade small screwdrivers, lubricant, and 2 pliers. This connector is cylindrical. The top side is slit front to back. The slit widens towards the center. On the bottom side there are 2 tabs which protrude into the cylinder. These protrusions oppose movement of the ferrals on the end of each side's cable. As you can imagine you slide the cable toward the center of this connector to release it. Use a small screw driver to bend the tab back. Odds are high that the ferrules are corroded into the connector. Here's where pliers, prying, and lubricant will ease the task.

There are 1 or 2 places where this cable routes through the frame. Remove the thin C clip and feel fee to use large long nose pliers to lever and pull the gromet free.

For reassembly remember the cable runs back along the axle.

5) the bearing races can be hammered out. I found screwdrivers to be a waste of time. Used a 6 inch long drift (a chisel like item square steel with no defined point on the end). I suppose the mass of this drift allowed the hammers force to move the race out with a few solid blows. Pay attention hammer downward, a cocked drift will drive into the wall of the hub.

6) Lastly, note the position and the orientation of the collar and the spacer as you disassemble the color is not omnidirectional.

7) don't expect the ABS ring to seat we securely. It doesn't. Remember how easy it was to remove it.

Thanks again for Chillyphilly's great instructions. I hope he doesn't mind me adding my experience too.

John

 

Thanks for the extra pointers, fellas. Those extra links will surely come in handy for others searching. Checking the end float is certainly a good idea, thanks for the tip. I did not check and have put on a couple thousand miles so far with no failures as of yet.

John, thanks for the added info, and I hope your second bearing install goes better than the first.


Sorry for the wait on the PDF. I cannot edit the original post, but I did update the instructions with pictures here:

 

Perfect timing! I think your write up should be s sticky.

John

 

Does the parts that you listed would cover the whole outer and inner bearings? I think you mentioned something about ...you didn't replace the inner? I might be misunderstood....Oh boy I'm about to tackle this job now...I getting play in my rear wheels...confirmed by a mechanic that it's the bearing....mechanic wants $1000 for the repairs and I said "I don't think so"

 

Yes, it covers the inner and outer wheel bearings. There are bearings which mate the axle to the differential which I did not replace and would require the removal of the complete axle. If your mechanic diagnosed the rear wheel bearings as failing, the parts listed will cover all the needed bearings for the wheel.

As to the confusion of the “inner,” I did not replace both of the inner bearing seals, which are plastic/rubber circular seals to keep grit and water out. One of my seals failed which caused the wheel bearing to wear prematurely. I didn’t know until it was disassembled so I only ordered one, but with how inexpensive they are, I’d just replace them both.

 

Thanks for the info, I've never dealt with axles before so do you know the seals part number?

wish me luck :-)

 

The right and left inner seal part numbers are the same, CBC1706.

 

Hey Chilly, So I'm in the middle of this job and came upon a problem that you anticipated...it appears my hub was frozen stuck and I am not sure what to do next....how did you release the hub? see pictures of where i am at for your reference...your pdf only shown the hub already slide out before taking off the two big screw that holds the whole assembly but I am stuck here...and tips what to do next? my ring gear won't come off either, is it putting a socket where the red circle is and "hammer time"?? am i missing a step? perhaps I need bench press?

 

Abidjan, yes that is where you hammer it, I use a 3 pound hammer.

Can you support the hub housing Ok? Maybe some 2x4s on end?

Some put the pivot bolt back in, connect it to the car, and tilt it downwards to support for the hammering.

John

 

Yes, as John said, a 3 pound hammer and a socket on the circle you outlined. It took some good blows to get it to free on mine. When it pushes through it will free up your ABS ring. I supported mine with some 2x4’s I had laying around which I screwed together for stability. Just make sure you don’t rest the hub assembly on the brake dust shield or it will get all bent up.

 

OK thank you buddy..I think I know what to do next ...maybe I'll do a video for my other side.... I am an amateur and I can't believe I am doing this ...LOL

 

Sounds like you are doing great. Just ping us if you have questions.

John

 

Hey guys, another unsuccessful night...maybe partly because I only have a 2 1/2 lb hammer .... I attached a couple of pics of how I set it up...I left the pivot bolt on, beat on it about 10 times but the hub won't budge...so what should be my next move:

1. Get a bigger hammer?
2. get a tool? I am not sure what to get though , every bearing tools out there are puller and what I need is a pusher I think. I have a bearing tool but again it's a puller not a pusher.
3. Get myself a 20 ton HF shop press?

Below is how I support the hub. I wonder if I should or can disassemble the emergency brake and shield first to gain more support space for the hub?

Also How do I disconnect the emergency brake wire coupler..it looks simple but damn I can't disconnect..I am guessing just using a thin flat screwdriver and toy with it till it comes off?



And...is it time to change the halfshaft U joint also?? see pic

 

Ok let's break this down. First your questions about ebrake:

Did you unhook the cable from the equalizer, take off the c clip and pull the cable out of its routing hole?

Are you now trying to disassemble the e brake hardware on the hub?

1) unhook the compression springs, 1 on each side. Press down and turn 45 degrees. Let pressure off it releases.

2) remove adjustment mechanism.

3) unhook stretched springs top and bottom. Remove shoes.

4) now the cable attachments expanding mechanism at bottom is free. Take a photo of how this thing looks before you remove it. Its hard to remember.

As I recall the cable is now free.

Bob if I missed your question let me know.

Here's the headache now - you've got a dust cover in the way of fully supporting the hub carrier. Getting to the screws holding this on is tough, the hub overhangs them.

Once you get here any auto parts store with a press can press the hub out for a few bucks.

It's late, I'm coming up empty trying to recall where I supported the hub carrier with the dust shield still on.

Yes the weight of the hammer has significant effect. I first tried to drift the bearings out with a regular hammer (waste of time). Changed to a 3+ pounder and was easy.

From what I saw on my car, I'm betting your bearings are seized. Without the press to use at this point, I better leave this to smarter folks to suggest better ways to hammer it out.

While I suggested it earlier, I'm beginning to wonder if you'd have better luck removing the hub assembly from the pivot joint.

John

 

Good notes on ebrake

http://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/xk...mbling-197532/