Good morning all,

I have an 01 which I primarily use for track days, autocross, and spirited driving and am in the process of doing a rear wheel bearing/hub replacement. The car spent half of its life up north, but garaged, so it has a little bit of rust on the suspension bits plus it has 130k miles so it's sometimes a pain to work on. I got everything apart and am at the point to separate the axle from the hubs but they just will not separate! I've been PB blasting it for weeks now, heating with a torch, whacking with a mallet, and even resorted to a hub puller but it ended up just digging into the axle. I'm at a loss as to what else I can do besides removing the axles from the car to get more room to whack harder from the back or just replace everything with new hardware.
Does anyone have any other suggestions as to what I can try to get the axle separated from the hub?

Thanks in advance.

 

Got a photo of its current state? I just replaced my axles recently and it didn't take much force from a mallet to knock them loose for me.

 

Yeah, but for the folks that don't live in SoCal like we do, they have to deal with a thing called rust

 

I had a rusted hub/axle from a part out that I had to deal with once.

A big press would make short work of it, but likely also ruin the spindle.

A hub puller with a powerful impact is what eventually worked for me, but you WILL distort the hub in order to get enough force.

Start with the hub and spindle and axle taken off the car....

I sprayed with PB blaster like crazy. I would impact it tight...and then hit the hub puller screw head with a hammer a few times (with moderate force, just trying to use the vibrations to knock things loose). Then repeat.

I even left it overnight with pressure on it, soaking in PB.

Eventually, it gave way.

You may need to fix up the axle threads, by the sound of what is going on with your puller. You might also need to replace the hub if it got permanently distorted.

After doing all this...you can just move out of the rusty area you're in.

Or! Load up the spline with anti seize before reinstalling the axle.

 

Not sure how it'll help but I'll give it a shot. Let me know if you spot anything!

 

Thanks for the suggestion! I have a 20 ton and may give it a shot if I go forth with removing everything from the car. Might just order replacement parts to have on hand if anything ends up broken or useless, or it may come in useful in a future replacement since this is my toy.
I moved from Chicago down to Bama a few years back and am so glad to be away from all of the salt and misery of Chicago winters, as you probably know.

Thanks again!

 

ignore me, i didn't see the rear part. you have an air hammer?

 

Bruv, if you're a lifelong CA resident, and someone mentions that something is rusted....its best to just not respond, and go back to doing California things like surfing in traffic at a red hot chili peppers concert on Santa Monica Blvd or whatever goes on down there.

 

Whoa whoa whoa, just trying to help here.

Can't tell from the photos but I'm going to assume you popped the lower balljoint, otherwise I have nothing else to add. I'll go back to "doing California things."

 

Unfortunately I do not as I don't use air tools, just have a puny compressor for inflating tires and minor things.