I didn’t try too hard to do this nicely. I didn’t destroy anything in the process, but I wasn’t concerned with keeping the springs in perfect shape or even in the order that things came apart. That being said, I do own the factory service manual for the car, so I could’ve put it all back together if need be.
Wear eye protection. I mean, you should be wearing eye protection when working on your car anyway. But when you’re dealing with springs that can go shooting/flying off? DEFINITELY wear eye protection. You’ve only got two eyes, so you should probably look after them. Toes? Eh, disposable I guess.
Trying to get the cable off the hub before the knuckle is off the car is a real bear. Don’t bother. You can kinda sorta do it, but it’s really not fun. So if you’re removing the knuckle, just wait on this particular part.
It’s certainly more complicated than the cable-acts-on-caliper setup, that’s for sure.
Go ahead and unbolt those.
Gosh I really want to completely disassemble my car and acid dip it and clean all the things and… squirrel!
Back to work.
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?