I just joined and I just bought my first Honda ever. I just picked up a 1992 Honda Accord EX, with 130000 miles with almost no rust. My first project is probably going to be replacing the front wheel bearings. I have searched the forum and judging by what everyone has posted previously, I have a bad wheel bearing. I was wondering, how would you rate the difficulty of this repair on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is you at least can change your own oil, and 10 is the level most of you guys are at! I am definately not a mechanic, but I have done brakes, ( I hate doing brakes), and a few other easy repairs. I am just trying to decide if I want to tackle this one myself. Thanks for any help you can give. P.S. Will a bad wheel bearing cause your car to pull to one side when driving? I have a very slight pull to the left, but I also need to replace the tires on the car very soon. Also, how do I link a this site back to my email so I get notifactions if I get a response on this forum. I am pretty old, so please bear with me!

I posted a question in here and now someone erased it! What's going on?

So here they both are...

 

I'll see about that for you..Posted in wrong forum..but now moved to here which is the correct forum..by the way..I'm the oldest on this site..I Think.

 

Also QWelcome to the HAF..were good people hang out!

 

Hi and welcome to the forum.

I had a civic for 10 years and apart from wear and tear, it never let me down, now I own an accord. they are great cars mate, no doubt.

If ya car pulls to one side while driving, I would check two things first: ya tyre pressure and also ya tracking!

If ya car pulls to one side as ya apply breaks, then it would be ya breaks.

In my openion, if a wheel bearing goes kaput, it makes noise! like grinding noise, others will correct me on this.

 

If a wheel bearing is toast then the rolling resistance would be higher on that side so in extreme cases it could cause a pull, however it would need to be so bad that the wheel is about to come off and yeah it would be makin all kinds of grinding/roaring noises, and the brake pedal would even feel low by that point because the wheel would be flopping over so far that it pushes the caliper piston way back into the bore when you let your foot off the brake.

Its alot more likely that your pull is because of a low tire or mismatched rims/tires. If thats not it I'd look at the control arms and alignment.

As far as changing the bearings its not a job you'd want to do without at least someone to help who know what he/she's doing. If you wanna save some money on the job you could probably take the steering knuckles off and take the bearing and knuckles to a shop and have them swap em for ya.

A quick and easy way to check those bearings to be sure they even need to be changed at all would be to support the car on jack stands from the body and just grab the top and bottom of the tire and check for play. If you can feel any looseness at all its bad (do the same thing left to right to check the tie-rods) then reach above the tire and put your hand on the upper ball joint. Spin the tire with your hand on the joint (make sure its in nuetral and your arm is clear of the tire) if you hear a roaring sound or feel a rough sensation in the ball-joint its bad (the bearing not the ball joint).

This would also be a good time to check all the ball joints for play and the bushings on the lower control arm for wear.

PS there's no need to change them in pairs, if one side checks out fine leave it alone.

 

O.k. I am happy because it definately looks like it is NOT the bearing. I jacked up the car and did all the little tests that everyone suggested and the only thing that seemed wrong was the brakes. The kid I bought the car from did a break job on the car, all four wheels, and now I think the calipers on the front are hanging up, (sticking). I pulled the left front caliper off and worked the piston in and out, checked the pins that the pads float on, (they were very free moving, no problem there) and put it back together. I drove the car a little ways, jacked it back up, and I am still getting a little drag when I rotate the wheel, but not as much. Here is my question tho, I drove the car for about 20 minutes, I didn't do alot of braking in that period of time, and parked the car and touched the rotors to see how hot they were. The left side was hot, but not so hot that I couldn't hold my fingers on it, but the right side was very hot! Do you think I should just replace the front calipers? I know if they are sticking, it is tough to get them to free up. I know driving it around with sticky calipers will kill my gas mileage and is probibly bad for the wheel bearings because of all that heat building up in there. Thanks for reading all this and for any help you can give me from here.

 

Sounds like the caliper(s) are due.....and I'd suggest you resolve as soon as you can as replacing the rotors is not much better than replacing the bearing....

As for the e-mail, User CP, Edit options, Messaging Options, second box is "Default thread subscription mode, there is a drop down for different options...instant, daily, weekly, do not subscribe, no notice.....