Luis de Prat

I've ordered the VW front bearings and seals to replace on the 83 and am getting ready to do the R/R as described in the Clark's Garage procedure.

Curious if anyone has actually done the oven baking of the hubs and kept their seals in the freezer overnight to get them in the hub.

TIA

Dave951M

I have done the heating/cooling thing and it does work. Only I didn't use the freezer, it was 15F outside when I did the work, just left them outside on the porch. It does work, but you have to move along as the temperatures stabilize, any advantage is lost.

Jon Moeller

Barbeque grill worked for me, and I think the hubs on my 951 are the same.
-J

RajDatta

Just did it a few weeks back. I initially tried without heating and let me tell you, you don't want to try without heating. The races came out like butter with one whack while before I didn't seem to have the heart to whack it so hard.
Regards.

Bryan

Yup. Heat the hubs, chill the races. Works great.

Bryan

jeeper31

About to do the rear wheel bearings on my '84? What is this heating and chilling method about? Would it help me?

Jon Moeller

Dan,
You heat the hubs up, to remove the old races, and install the new. The expansion caused by the heat increases the difference in diameters between the race, and the hub that encompasses it. This allows you to more easily remove the race from the hub. By chilling the new race, you further increase the difference between the two parts, thus making the installation of the new race that much easier.
-J

Skip Wolfe

I used a torch intead of the oven but I did freez the races overnight. Worked fine.

jeeper31

I am new at this so forgive me. If replaceing the whole bearing is the race the part in the center of the bearing? I have the new bearings just haven't seen what it they look like on the car.

Peckster

An hour in the freezer is plenty. They won't get any colder after that.

Luis de Prat

Thanks guys. Glad it works and I'll be giving it a try next week...

Jeeper31, you don't need to resort to this for the rear trailing arms on the early cars. I have heard of a similar trick for the post 85.5 rear wheel bearings, though.

idontknow

What's the VW part number? Or at least what's it compatible with.

Luis de Prat

If you do a search, you'll find a recent thread about them that I posted the part numbers on. Here they are again:

Front Wheel Inner Bearing: 211.405.625
Front Wheel Outer Bearing: 211.405.645.D
Front Wheel Seal: 477.405.641

It's great buying VW parts for these cars. So cheap compared to the 944-specific. Hope this helps.

PorscheDoc

Yes, i will attest to the "do not try this without heating the hubs" I did it this way with a bearing race set, and it took about a half hour of pounding, and was a pain in the ***. I figured if i threw them in the oven, the girlfreind would throw me in the oven, so that is why i didnt do that. Acetylene torch would be handy, but don't have one down here....why couldn't someone have told me to use the grill idea before....arrggg that would have been perfect...lol