P38 Front Hubs

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wantaquad

Active Member
Posts
306
Hi Gents
Has any one changed the front hub bearings on their P38?
If so did you buy the whole hub or just the bearing?
What did they cost etc..
All comments appreciated

Cheers
 
The bearings are around £80 apiece.
Aftermarket hubs just under £300, genuine closer to £400 per side.
PM me your email and I'll send you a step by step guide on "How to" replace the bearings.
You will need access to a 25-30 ton hydraulic press (Preferably 30).
 
I did my o/s/f a few weeks ago ,I just did the bearing ,I had to use a 25 ton press at my mates engineering shop and even with the full weight of the press we had to get it glowing red hot before it would budge ,I am fitting the complete hub when the other side goes:
 
Wantaquad,

Irishrover has an excellent step by step guide on doing the hubs.

I'll make one suggestion that'll make getting the hubs out of the hub carrier easier. I've just spent the whole weekend swopping the diffs from a scrapper into my Rangie and doing the bushings on the front axle. I was really dreading the job as I had such a torrid time taking off the hub to do the bearing last time, even with Johns write up.

This time I found a short cut that really simplified it. I bought the diff from a local scrap yard. The guy gave me the whole axle at a cut down price but I was to return everything but the diff. Since this was the case and the brake discs were pretty much worn out anyway I undid everything as per Johns instructions but then, instead of taking off the hub using his methodology, I screwed a couple of wheel nuts onto the hub with the disc in place and took a sledge to it :eek:

Wow!! It worked a treat! It took me 3 hours to get off one hub last time. This time I had 4 off in 40 mins. Obviously I used the scrap disc on my own axle too, not my own discs :p.

If you don't have a scrap disc to hand, drill a piece of angle iron to the pitch of 2 opposing bolts to give yourself something to hit.

I'm sure someone else will come along to point out the craziness of my approach but I can't see much wrong with it :D :D

HTH
Spudh
 
Never had a problem changing them. Have done half a dozen to date. Pressed them out cold with a 30 to press, took almost the full 30 ton to get them moving but once they started to move it was easy.
 
td1 said:
I did my o/s/f a few weeks ago ,I just did the bearing ,I had to use a 25 ton press at my mates engineering shop and even with the full weight of the press we had to get it glowing red hot before it would budge ,I am fitting the complete hub when the other side goes:
Click to expand...

There's a handy trick to making that much easier. Split out the centre of th old bearing so that you have only the outer shell still stuck in the hub. Now run a few lines of weld around the inside of the bearing shell. Then allow the inside to cool abit before pressing out. In a lot of cases it'll actually hammer out without a press at all.

The other thing is to put the new bearing in the deep freeze for a few days before you go to put it in. get the old bearing out with the welding method and it will be still hot when you go to put in the new cold bearing. A bit of oil and it'll slip in handy enough.
 
SpudH said:
There's a handy trick to making that much easier. Split out the centre of th old bearing so that you have only the outer shell still stuck in the hub. Now run a few lines of weld around the inside of the bearing shell. Then allow the inside to cool abit before pressing out. In a lot of cases it'll actually hammer out without a press at all.

The other thing is to put the new bearing in the deep freeze for a few days before you go to put it in. get the old bearing out with the welding method and it will be still hot when you go to put in the new cold bearing. A bit of oil and it'll slip in handy enough.
Click to expand...


glad someone on here is thinking outside the box. There more than one way to skin the cat.
 
SpudH said:
Wantaquad,

Irishrover has an excellent step by step guide on doing the hubs.

I'll make one suggestion that'll make getting the hubs out of the hub carrier easier. I've just spent the whole weekend swopping the diffs from a scrapper into my Rangie and doing the bushings on the front axle. I was really dreading the job as I had such a torrid time taking off the hub to do the bearing last time, even with Johns write up.

This time I found a short cut that really simplified it. I bought the diff from a local scrap yard. The guy gave me the whole axle at a cut down price but I was to return everything but the diff. Since this was the case and the brake discs were pretty much worn out anyway I undid everything as per Johns instructions but then, instead of taking off the hub using his methodology, I screwed a couple of wheel nuts onto the hub with the disc in place and took a sledge to it :eek:

Wow!! It worked a treat! It took me 3 hours to get off one hub last time. This time I had 4 off in 40 mins. Obviously I used the scrap disc on my own axle too, not my own discs :p.

If you don't have a scrap disc to hand, drill a piece of angle iron to the pitch of 2 opposing bolts to give yourself something to hit.

I'm sure someone else will come along to point out the craziness of my approach but I can't see much wrong with it :D :D

HTH
Spudh
Click to expand...

Hi Spud Owya doin ???:)

As Spud and many others have discovered, the hub tends to "Weld" itself to the locating bore in the swivel hub due to rust. Forget WD40 etc. it aint gonna work !!
It's down to brute force and can take ages. Anything that makes the job easier is good enough for me.
Good post mate !!

:5bhurray::5bhurray::5bhurray::5bhurray::5bcheers2:
 
Irishrover said:
Hi Spud Owya doin ???:)

As Spud and many others have discovered, the hub tends to "Weld" itself to the locating bore in the swivel hub due to rust. Forget WD40 etc. it aint gonna work !!
It's down to brute force and can take ages. Anything that makes the job easier is good enough for me.
Good post mate !!

:5bhurray::5bhurray::5bhurray::5bhurray::5bcheers2:
Click to expand...

Hi John,

I've been laying low, ignoring the rangie for a few months but the diff finally gave up the ghost last week so I had to fix it, herself was sick of me taking her car :p (I nearly paid for the cost of the diff in saved diesel by using her Prius for a week instead of the Rangie :doh:)
Of course before I went at it I had to come on here for a bit of encouragment :D:D

All went well but I'm aching all over:eek: Every bit of the rangie suspension weighs a tonne and is torqued to 500nm:eek: I took the fron axle right off since I was doing the bushings as well.

I fitted Polybush blue bushings. I'm a little underwhelmed by the compliance of the 'comfort' bushings, but I may have over tightened the radius arm to chassis ones. I remember now (after I did it again of course:rolleyes:) that I did the same on my RRC a few years back. So I'll reserve judgement until I've fine tuned it a bit and put back on the 16" wheels I've been pining for. I switched to 18's back in November when i got a set for free with good tires on them. I've regretted that since but its taken me till now to save up for the 4 16"s I needed. I've 4 Toyo Open Country A/T's waiting to go on next w/end.
I pity all the bling boys on their 20's and 22's with rubber bands for tires, Irish roads are only going to get worse so its 16's all the way for me.
 
Hi Spudh and all.

I was all set to replace my hub unit but couldn't even get the bleeding hub nut undone - broke loads of tools on it. Turned out I neede a new diff as well so just got my indie to source a complete axle.

But, while researching, I did find an interesting video on youtube - someone was selling what was basically an L shaped lump of metal that bolted to the wheel stubs which you then belted with a sledgehammer and the hub fell off. Don't think it would work on the rangie as is because of the driveshaft but a c shaped lump of metal would allow you to belt it sideways to remove the hub...? Sort of like a giant slidehammer.

Seemed like it might work for someone who could weld well anyway (ie not me)

Guy
 
hi everyone is the bearing replaceable on the 3.9 model as everyones been telling me its the complete hub assembly on that model
 
no havn't rave just took the hub off today ordered bearing from parts supplier and different bearing they said other option was complete hub
 
My P38 is a 95 MY, I was doing the driveshaft boots so had to take hubs off of course, I used a 50/50 mix of acetone and transmission oil as a penetrating fluid to start with on the various bolts and joints and the hubs came out easy enough, they were tight but not stupidly seized in.
I did snap my 1/2 inch breaker bar on one of the hub nuts though!
 
took couple hours of soaking in penetrating oil to get hub off worse possible thing every tried on range rover that was
 
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