Wheel Hub / Bearing

Hello,

I'm new to the forum and I apologise that my first post is asking for something rather than helping someone out, but...

I need help with the rear hub on my freelander 1.

I was refitting the wheel the other day and must have over done it with the wheel brace because much to my surprise the one of the threaded studs onto which you put the wheel nut sheared off!

So I now have a hub with only 4 threaded studs holding the wheel on instead of 5, which is of course unsafe.

I sourced a replacement hub assembly from my local scrap yard and set to work... I assumed that it would be a case of removing the hub lock nut and putting a 3 legged gear puller on to extract the hub flange, however the haynes manual says that you need to remove the whole hub assembly and then you worry about removing the hub flange later by driving it out from the inboard side with a "suitable drift" which I assume means bashing the hell out of it with a socket or similar.

This is all well and good, but my freelander has evidently decided to spend the last 10 years rusting itself solid, and the nut and bolt on the transverse link are seized solid. After a frustrating few hours I have achieved nothing more than rounding the head of the bolt on the transverse link so it definately is not moving anytime soon!

That sort of sets the scene; my questions really are:

**Obviously in the long term something will have to be done about the seized transverse link - and indeed the fact that the rest of the suspension components attached to the hub are probably seized too - I didn't even get to them. I guess this will be a professional garage job in due course. However, money is tight and so I need a short term solution to my immediate problem of the broken threaded stud, so...

**Why not use a three legged puller on the hub? Would that not have the desired effect of simply pulling the hub flange off of the drive shaft or am I missing something (entirely possible - I still have much to learn!) - for example would the inward load on the drive shaft caused by the puller risk pushing the drive shaft too far into the differential and doing damage?
I was thinking of removing the hub locknut and brake drum and then simply getting to work with the puller on the basis that it should just slide the relevant bits off the driveshaft / axle. Something, however, is stopping me - I'm worried that doing that would cause something terrible to happen!

**This may be a really silly idea, but bear with me [remembering that I am skint, short of time and (as I have proved by getting myself into his mess in the first place) lacking in mechanical ability]... Some vehiclesn like the freelander have threaded studs and the wheel is attached by wheelnuts, but equally some vehicles just have threaded holes in the hub flange into which wheel-bolts are used to hold the wheel on... What if I completely removed the broken threaded stud and drilled it out to make a hole, which I then threaded with a tap & die set and into which I could then simply put an appropriately sized wheel-bolt; so my wheel would be held on with 4 wheel nuts and one wheel bolt. My worry here is that the hub flange is made of too strong stuff for me to cut a thread in to?

Any help and advice would be much appreciated

Many thanks

Alex.

for ****s and giggles where are you? someone may be able to have a look

Portsmouth; i'm willing to travel a bit if someone could help - I reckon it'd be alright to potter along at 40mph with the remaining 4 bolts...

Reckon I'd try heat and stud extractors 1st

Thinking about it that;s not gonna work is it

Too far away from me, or I'd come and look

knock the broken stud out with a hammer and punch, knock a good stud out of your spare hub, and fit in your existing hub pulling it in with a wheel nut with washers behind, studs are a press fit using splines, if your not sure, drift one out from your spare hub, try and use a lump of brass or aluminium to protect the threads.

Freelance:

Thankyou so much!!

I've just spent the last couple of hours in my garage doing exactly as you suggested and it has worked a treat.

I'll take more care when doing up wheelnuts in the future!

Thanks again!

Glad you got it fixed.

This should serve as a warning to everyone who doesn't use a torque wrench to tighten wheel nuts.

Almost everyone who uses a standard wheel-wrench makes them far, far too tight. Eventually the studs will snap or the nuts strip the threads.

Correct setting is 115 Nm (or 85 lbf.ft)

Singvogel.

Good advice

I recently replaced a rear wheel bearing on my 2004 TD4 HSE Freelander, a reasonably big job but bolts not seized, even the brake bleed screw was easy to open after refitting the complete hub. I was lucky enough to have mine at my mates garage on 2 post ramp & all the tools including his hydraulic press to push the old bearing out & new one in. Happy to give advice if anyone else needs to change one.