Front wheel bearing removal and refitting

[Niels Svane]

Hi

As the weather here in DK is superb (22-27 C and sunny), I will change the front right wheel bearing on my TL this week.

I have a Haynes manual, and all the bearing parts. I will borrow a puller (actually I can borrow a genuine renault puller specifik for the R4).

Are there any tricks or small advices that will make the process smoother, I will happily accept them


Maybe I'll switch the two driveshafts over (right to left and vice versa), as the car has begun juddering when shifting gears (and its not worn engine mounts).

Then I will change my iron radiator to a new 180 £ copper radiator and a 75C degrees thermostat, as I am pretty tired of refilling coolant, and driving with the heater turned on.

Before wintertime, 4 inner wings of aluminum and 4 new michelins will follow

 

[Paul Narramore]

Aluminium inner wings?

 

[jonigel]

Do not read the haynes manual !!!!.

 

[Niels Svane]

I have heard that the haynes is not too bright on the bearing replacement part. Thus me asking for any pointers in the forum

Regarding the inner wings, it was just to mention what I'm going to do to my poor little renault during the next months It's a french model (imported to Denmark in 2007), with no inner wings. But here in Denmark its a must to have inner wings (as new cars have, only those are of plastic) as we use a lot of salt in the wintertime, and the weather generally suck. My parts-dealer are then having these innerwings of alu. made, so that salt and dirt are kept from the chassis and suspension.

 

[nicky4tl]

ahah.do you mean wheel arch liners? like here http://www.renault4.co.uk/gordini-wheel-arch-liners.htm ?
That sounds very cool. Do post pictures when you get them

 

[reidalpine]

I think the largest manufacturer of these wheel arch liners is the Finnish company LOKARI ,as you say they are aluminium with some
plastics towards the sides etc. -Reid.

 

[Niels Svane]

Yep, thats the one. Sorry for the wrong choice of words

And we are pretty lucky here, because the beforementioned parts-dealer has absolutely everything, both parts and tools. And cheap too: 300 kr (32 pounds) for an original roofrack, and 65 per end for the wheel arch liners.

If anyone would like his expertise, parts or tools, this is his homepage: http://www.renaultdele.dk/10-kontakt_os.htm

He has literally bought a'hell'of'a lot of part-stocks from danish and foreign renault dealers.

He also fiddles with buying and selling cars. He has one of six morgan Le mans 62 edition, a normal morgan 8, a singer senior 12 that belonged to a danish king, a triumph tr6, mgb, ural with sidecar, ford transit ambulance from the 1970's, wolseleys, a lot of renault 17's, and a running galvanized R4 - And its the whole friggin' car that is galvanized

 

[Niels Svane]

The arch liners I am getting is made here in Odense, Denmark by a firm called tektrol - A firm specialized in quality undercoating

But if there no other advice that throwing the Haynes manual out, I'll just change the bearing by trial and error

 

[Jurjenz]

If you have a puller and a workshop press, you will be fine. Make sure you refit the bearings the same way you removed them.

Removing the other one:

 

[Niels Svane]

Thanks Jurjenz Is a 'normal' offtheshelf puller enough? I won't bother going to collect the R4 specifik one (a 100km drive).

 

[Jurjenz]

Yup!

https://www.vidaxl.nl/p/210018/lager-trekker-set-12-delig

 

[Niels Svane]

Nice I am looking forward to installing the new radiator. Today we had 25 degrees, and I had to drive the car at 70-85 km/h with the heater on max. But I also changed 2-3 bulbs in the instruments, and re-attached the door-cover in one side this evening, so a little progress is done! Tomorrow will be the new radiator, bearings, rustremoval, filler and paint And I need to attach a grill/net, so that the new radiator wont be smashed to pieces by bugs in no time.

 

[Niels Svane]

It wasn't the bearings but a balljoint on the steering arm, so a new one has been collected and will be installed tomorrow. And now the new radiator is finally installed after much hassle. The fan-shroud couldn't clear the fan when attached to the new radiator, so the bottom is now cut off
The small gear arm split was also a b*** to get back in place... But now its filled up with 5 litres of sweet valvoline and just awaiting a change of transmission oil and ball-joint tomorrow

 

[Niels Svane]

Idling