jonwanner

I am now the proud owner of a 1996 4runner and i love it. Havent gotten a chance to go wheeling yet, i have only had it a week. I was in my auto class yesterday, and i decided to check my rear brakes, since the e-brake was next to usless. when i took off the passenger side drum, it was full of diff. fluid. so today i replaced the seals and bearings and everything. it was $80 from the dealer for everything, including a new bearing retainer and abs retainer. the point of all this is to complain about what a pain the *ss it was to replace all of that. everything i pressed on, and that abs ring and retainer is freaking tight. i am an intern at a local shop as a part of my ROP program, and so i had access to a full shop, and the help of experienced technicians, and we couldnt get them off, the backing plate was in the way, and we couldnt get the assymbly in the press. i ended up having to take it to a machine shop to take it off. all i have got to say is that if you broke an axle on the trail, the only way to fix it would be to have an entire asymbly, including the backing plate, bearing, seal, abs ring and retainers all on hand.

Ironmike4x4

You must've had a really tight one. Mine wasn't too bad to take off, it did use a little bit of force but not a press or anything. Did u take the backing plate nuts off?

snap-on

there is talk being able to pull the axle out with a slide hammer when on the trail although I agree, it took everything my little shop press had to press the stuff off.

LarsDennert

It's usually only the inner seal that's bad so pulling all the bearings is extra work to replace the outer. If you didn't get that inner seal in right or damaged it, it will leak again shortly. They will do that...

jonwanner

yeah, i checked the other side today, and only the inner seal was bad. so i just had to replace that. on the other side, the diff oil had leaked al the way through the bearing and the outer seal, so the bearing was obviously bad, as it was no longer sealed, and it would be only a matter of time before water got in. We tried using slde hammers yesterday to get the abs retainer and ring off, but it didnt budge. so good luck with that method. yeah, i had to take off the backing plate studs, is that what your talking about? I still didnt have enough room to fit the axle into the press at my shop, so i just took it over to a machine shop that does alot of work for us, they were cool and did it for free.