GT350 Rear Bearing Hub Replacement

[TeamGomez]

While performing a tire dressing decontamination/application of CarPro BlackOut, I discovered a slight wobble to the LR wheel. A quick search for this blue oval newbie showed me that the FoMoCo reliability of the bearing hub is wanting...the mean time between failure being somewhere between 1k and 50k miles...so I ordered a Timken and rolled in hot today.

First comments- Man, there is a veritable sucking chest wound of DIY material for our trusty steeds. The only DIY video I found was a CJ Pony Parts piece on a 5.0 S550. There was another that spoke to not having to dissy the drop link/camber arm/aft knuckle and I thought that is what I was going to get away with but alas, the 5.0 has 14mm bolts for the hub and the 350 has 18mm so with no further adieu-

1. WTF is up with Ford and blue loc-tite? They use that stuff like I do Cholula hot sauce...I put that shit on everything! I mean, for real, why does the ABS sensor or the brake line clamp need blue loc-tite? Never encountered such a slather on my race cars from across the pond that I did my best to burn all my children's college funds with...rant over.
2. The CJ video is void of any torque specs. I'll include photos of the specs below.
3. There are only a total of 17 fasteners that need to be loosened...why then does it take so many trips to the tool drawers? I'll explain (or do my best to do so).
4. Yes, you have to pop the suspension bolts to pull the hub away from the half shaft so there is room to put a socket on the hub bolts.
5. That e-brake spring...I ended up using a clamp compressor to compress the spring then pop the bottom piece off the e-brake arm that goes to the drum brakes (yes....we have drum brakes in the back lol). Then you must use something to compress the tabs on the cable clip in order to pull the cable out of the housing so you can get to the top caliper bolt. I used a spark plug boot needle nose tool (blue handled tool in the photo) that perfectly compresses said cable clip.
6. I was too lazy to pull a car off the lift and put the 350 on the top rack to ease the effort. This necessitated using a floor jack to get 129 lb/ft on the caliper bolts (no leaning over and pulling up on that beeyatch).

So in order of events, pulled wheel off and set parking brake to get the 32mm half shaft nut off. They used something other than blue loc-tite that had my 1/2" gun hammering on that sucker all the way. It didn't freewheel until there were only a few threads left and it was HOT by that point.

Then I leaned over and scratched my head a bit trying to get the e-brake spring off to get at the caliper bolts. Finally flipped it off and got after the caliper bolts after pulling the pads. The loc-tited bolts. Sheesh. Then there wasn't a place to hook the caliper to without it bouncing off the sway bar bolt so I wrapped the caliper in a mf towel and hooked it somewhere in there out of the way.

Then I discovered that you do in fact have to pull the 3 bolts that they show you in the CJ video in order to get to the hub bolts. The 1/2" gun worked well for the knuckle bolt (203 ft/lbs) then there was the 18 mm vertical link and 15 mm camber arm. This lets you pull the hub away from the half shaft but be sure to remove the abs sensor first otherwise the hub will fall outboard and strain the wire.

Getting torque on the hub bolts with the hub assy disconnected is a bit of a chore along with a variety of wobble extensions that made it easier. The old hub slipped right out. Then the surfaces were cleaned with brake cleaner and anti-seize was applied to the new hub and installed. Getting the 98 ft/lbs on those 4 bolts was a PITA with the assy disconnected though I'm sure there is a hack for this.

Now for the nut buster- that half shaft nut torque being 98 ft/lbs THEN 45 deg. I had my 1/2" torque wrench at 250 ft/lbs after setting 98 and that only got me about 30 deg. I got a breaker bar out and added my floor jack handle to give me 5' of 'wrench' and it took all of me to get that last 15 deg. Eat your Wheaties.

As noted, pulling up on a torque wrench on the caliper bolts was a non starter. I ended up putting the torque wrench on a floor jack to get the 129 ft/lbs necessary to secure the caliper.

Here's the dead bearing. The shaved bearing dust was packed at the 6 o'clock position and the wobble was evident. If there was a decent MTBF value here (i.e. known lifespan), I would have done the other side as well. But given the random nature of the bearing failures, I'll wait and see with the others.

I know...this thread is worthless without pix but I hope the overview helps the next dude/dudetter get 'er done.

Cheers!

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[GTP]

Yeah, there is a lot involved in working on the GT350 rear end. And a fine line between DIY satisfaction and "I'm sick of this".

Brake/parking-brake/hub are full of Catch-22's. Infuriating.

You're right about the trips to the tool box. Your photo shows the great and surprising variety of tools needed.

As for the axle nut torque. I use the same procedure as you. I am weak, so I pull with all my strength until I can detect no more rotation. I once asked a Ford Mustang mechanic about the torque spec there and his answer was along the lines of "crank as hard as you can".