Bearing re-pack help.

[MSHardeman]

I am right in the middle of TRYING to repack my front bearing, and I am having a byach of a time getting the three philips head screws out of the retaining ring. I managed to get ONE out, but the other five (two on driver side and all three on passenger side) are IMPOSSIBLE.

I have already started to strip the heads out of them. I went and got a bolt extractor kit, but it just drilled the head off of one of the screws and left the rest of it in the hub. I've destroyed another one trying to use a flat head screw driver to whack it around. No luck! I've used generous amounts of penetrating lube to no avail.

How, in the name of all that's holy, did any of you get these frakin' little screws out?

Looks like I'm going to have to call a mechanic to see if they can extract the screws for me, so it looks like I'll be taking off of work on Monday.

That was a partial vent, but if anyone has any suggestions lets hear them.

Mark

[PK]

Hi - sounds like you needed an impact screw driver set at the begining. Too late now for the ones that are damaged.

An impact screw driver has a tip that fits the slot of the screw, and then you hit the end of the impact area with a hammer.
It vibrates the screw loose, and at the same time applies a twisting motion.
In Australia, about $20 at any good tool shop for a cheap set.

Good luck

PK

[Joe_Black]

Impact driver as above. The right tools are definitely your friend and too inexpensive to not have handy.

[Tone]

Lisa and I just did hers and everytime I do them now, I take a correctly sized phillips head screwdriver, place the tip in the screw, and pop it with a deadblow (or regular) hammer - this sets the tool in the slots and "loosens' the screw. Then pushing hard on the handle of the screw driver it should come right out, even those that you have already stripped - might want to hit those harder.

[MSHardeman]

Tone,

Thanks for the tip, but that is exactly what I did the first time I tried to get the screws out. Even after I had started to strip some of them out, I applied a generous amount of penetrating lube, did the hammer whack, and tried again, but those little sucker aren't going anywhere.

I'm going to try and find an impact hammer in the morning to see if I can get the slightly stripped ones out with that, but the one that is totally stripped and the one that is broken off will either need to be mechanically removed or drilled out and tapped.

As far as I can tell, the retaining ring is screwed to the hub nut, so if worse came to worse I could just drill out the heads on all of the screws and just get some new hub nuts. I'm going to call Merlin in the morning to see if he has any on hand, and if he does if he can overnight them to me. If that ends up being cheaper than paying a mechanic to extract or drill and tap them out I'll do that so I can at least get to the bearing to start the repack and rotor replacement.

I can't believe that 5 tiny little 4mm screws (I actually got one off of the driver side) are stopping me from completing the bearing repack, rotor and brake pad replacement, and stainless steel brake line install.

[tom4bren]

I can't provide any words of wisdom beyond what's already said in terms of getting them out now ... but when you get ready to put her all back together, put some anti-sieze on them puppies so that next time it won't be such a problem.

[MSHardeman]

More to the saga....but good news this time.

Right after I called Merlin to get the hub nuts shipped to me, I went out and bought an impact driver. Tried it on the goofy little screws and NO LUCK. The impact driver only stripped them out more.

After a little cussing (OK, A LOT of cussing) and some tool throwing I grabbed the screw extractor and chucked it into my drill fully intending to just drill the heads off of the screws and just wait for the nuts to come in from Merlin. As I was drilling the first screw out (keep in mind that the extractor drills with the drill in reverse) the drill bit part of the extractor must have grabbed the screw enough and it backed right out!! WTF!? Must have been a fluke...NOPE, same thing on the second screw...and the third...and the...you get the idea. This same process even worked on the headless screw. Well-I'll-be-darn!

So, now is all right with the world and I have completely torn down the driver side and I am waiting for everything to dry off after degreasing and washing it so I can put it all back together.

I'm still going to let the hub nuts come as I'm sure it's always good to have a couple lying around.

Thanks to everyone for the input. First round in Moab is on me.

I just love our little "family".

Mark

[Joe Isuzu]

glad there's a happy ending for you on this Mark! I can totally empathize with you about the cursing and tool throwing! My knuckles are pretty scuffed up from working on the car this weekend, I've been telling people at work I've started my own neighbourhood "Fight Club"

[Ldub]

More to the saga....but good news this time.

Right after I called Merlin to get the hub nuts shipped to me, I went out and bought an impact driver. Tried it on the goofy little screws and NO LUCK. The impact driver only stripped them out more.

After a little cussing (OK, A LOT of cussing) and some tool throwing I grabbed the screw extractor and chucked it into my drill fully intending to just drill the heads off of the screws and just wait for the nuts to come in from Merlin. As I was drilling the first screw out (keep in mind that the extractor drills with the drill in reverse) the drill bit part of the extractor must have grabbed the screw enough and it backed right out!! WTF!? Must have been a fluke...NOPE, same thing on the second screw...and the third...and the...you get the idea. This same process even worked on the headless screw. Well-I'll-be-darn!

So, now is all right with the world and I have completely torn down the driver side and I am waiting for everything to dry off after degreasing and washing it so I can put it all back together.

I'm still going to let the hub nuts come as I'm sure it's always good to have a couple lying around.

Thanks to everyone for the input. First round in Moab is on me.

I just love our little "family".

Mark

If it comes down to the wire, consult you're local hardware dood...I replaced all the little (soft) hub screws with stainless, that were readily available from my local Ace Hardware.

[johnnyapollo]

Those small screws are also available in the screw bin at Home Depot. They can right out for me during the rotor replacement, but I bought some extras anyway just in case they were needed.

-- John

[MSHardeman]

I'm sure that you're sick of hearing about this by now, but I appreciate you letting me vent.

There is yet another twist to my rotor replacement saga. Yesterday after reassembling the driver side hub assembly without a hitch I was bolting the new disk down to the passenger side hub and ended up cross threading a bolt so now I'm dead in the water AGAIN. I live in a small mountian town, and the biggest parts store we have is NAPA. They don't have this bolt in their system, and they don't have anything big enough to rethread it. SO, called Merlin AGAIN and he is overnighting a couple of them to me so hopefully by Wednesday night I will FINALLY have my VX back together just in time to break the brakes in for Moab. Heck, I may be riding the brakes on the way to Moab to help seat them in.

I'm pretty darned sure that I've tightened everything down, but if you're behind me in Moab and you see something leaking underneath, honk your horn, scream, and make a general commotion because it's probably brake fluid....and that's kind of important on the trails.

[Dare2Dream]

Let us know how the rethreading goes. I once broke an EGR bolt and the mechanic at a local shop removed it and did the rethread. Since then, I'm afraid to remove the bolt since I don't know how good of a job he did, but it's been holding fine for 2 years now.