I quickly realized why StopTech recommended cutting the dust shield off. You can remove the bolts that hold the shield to the rotor without any trouble. But you can’t actually remove the shield from the hub because the face of the hub that holds the studs is in the way. So the only way to remove the shield intact is to remove the hub from the knuckle.
Removing the hub from the knuckle involves popping the back cover and getting a giant nut off and other things. It would be easier if the knuckle was off the car.
If I was going to remove the knuckle I’d have to pop the ball joints and tie rods.
Then I thought that this was a 27 year old car and I had no idea how old the wheel bearings were. Or the ball joints. And I was going to be hurtling along at triple-digit speeds. It would probably be a good idea to replace some of those components proactively.
But you can’t actually replace just the ball joints on this stupid car, thanks to Toyota. You have to buy whole control arms. Sure, there’s probably some guy somewhere that knows what ball joint you can buy to get it done. Or you can buy some cheap China garbage aftermarket stuff (at least for the uppers) and hope it holds together.
Or you can say F-it and then decide to go full racecar. I chose that option. Time for a complete hub/knuckle rebuild at all four corners, and maybe some arm upgrades while I’m at it. Here goes… everything.
I have Whiteline JZA80 swaybars on the SC300. They work well for light track duty and hard street use. I had Whiteline swaybars on my S13 many moons ago and completely destroyed the endlinks. The bushings eventually pulled out and got super mangled. Endlinks are a wear item, so it’s not like it’s a terrible design. But they’re not adjustable, and if you want to corner weight a car or ensure proper swaybar preload, you need adjustable endlinks. So these would go in the bin.
You could disconnect the ABS sensor from the car harness and leave it on the knuckle, but I decided to pull the sensor off and leave it hanging from the control arm instead. Po-Tay-To / Po-Tah-To.
This goopy gunk is probably whatever aerated and heat cycled lubricant started inside the wheel bearing and worked its way out into the kuckle. Yuck. That certainly won’t improve the fidelity of the wheel speed signal.
6 comments
This is real garage work, not your fancy Discovery Channel scripted stuff. Nice work!
You shouldn’t reuse hubs, they are just as much a wear item as the bearings.
@Mikhael – which part of the hub is a wear item? It rests inside the bearing / rides on the bearing.
Metal fatigue, I’ve seen hubs and bearings both let go on track cars. It’s also usually very difficult to remove the stuck on inner race without damaging the hub. Even if you do a lot of the time the hub is scored and scratched in the process and you risk spinning the hub inside the race once it’s installed.
Good points. I didn’t notice any issues with the hubs. The fronts were very clean and the rears are splined. We’ll see how it goes, I guess!
Pff, I’ve been running good tight junkyard hubs on my road race Camaro for years. It’s about a grand to upgrade to to the Corvette SKF hubs with the adapters. You’ll know when they’re bad, and if they were good last time out no need to waste money. They’re not going to suddenly explode and send you into the wall down the back straight at Road America. As far as popping ball joints with a hammer, it also works very well to just bash on the knuckle itself while leaving the nut loosely on. I rarely use a separator anymore, so much faster and easier to give it a few whacks and the boots and everything are reusable too. You’re definitely spending more than I would, but it should turn out like a show piece in the end. You gonna go with sphericals in the control arms?