How To - change a wheel bearing on a Mk1 TT

John-H · Feb 10, 2015

How to replace a wheel bearing on a Mk1 TT

This job was actually performed on my S3 but the Mk 1 TT Quattro has exactly the same wheel bearing front and rear.

My S3 had done around 240k miles when the first front wheel bearing started to make a noise. It got worse and worse and I eventually had it replaced by an independent garage but then the other side went not that long after. I had that side fixed by Audi as they actually had a cheaper quote at the time. Then only about 18 months later the first side went again

Reported here:
https://www.ttforum.co.uk/forum/viewtop ... &p=4558673

I had it changed by another independent - thinking the previous was a rogue fitment - but then the same side went again, less than a year later at 270k miles. Hmmm... something is not right here...

The reason I hadn't changed it myself previously was the need of a press. The Audi workshop manual shows use of a special hydraulic press tool applied to the hub whilst still on the car. Most independents seem to use a general bench press which requires taking the hub off the car with the added complication of seized bolts and brake line disconnection, bleeding etc. plus wheel alignment. The least disturbed the better really but their labour rates are cheaper so it evens out - so long as nothing goes wrong!

By now I wanted to do this job myself. I had seen some videos and How Tos for other Audis and VWs but there remained the mystery of how to remove the inner hub with the ABS slotted ring being in the way - the easy way of screwing in wheel studs against the outer hub wouldn't therefore work. There was a horseshoe contraption that fitted around the ABS ring against the outer hub but that looked expensive. I had a slide hammer but it was for a four stud hub. Someone also told me that I could use a two leg puller and press against the driveshaft end with the hub nut removed as the inner hub wasn't that tight. This all needed to be discovered.

I thought of making my own screw press fittings but I was a bit short on time and the screw bolt would need to take several tonnes of force so the available choice was limited. I was pointed in the direction of this kit by DazWaie who had used it himself. It worked a treat.

"23 PCS Wheel Bearing Removal Professional Tool Set Kit For Front Wheel Drive" @ £43.98 from ACwholesale on eBay

This kit contains various plates and cups that exactly suit the bearing and importantly allows the inner and outer bearing races to be pressed on independently without imparting force through the balls in the bearing.

The bearing dimensions are:
OD = 74 mm
ID = 40 mm
Length = 40 mm
Outer race edge ~ 3.2 mm
Inner race edge ~ 7.2 mm

The outer edge thickness is not very much so you want to press it in with a flat face disc of little under 74 mm so it presses on the edge evenly and doesn't slip off and press the inner part of the bearing but is small enough to follow it through inside the hub bore. Fortunately the kit has a wide range to suit e.g. one with ID = 37.7 mm and OD = 73.6 mm which is ideal.

Here's a new *** bearing from GSF for £37

PN: 413VG0053

Here's how

First you need to loosen the hub nut. This is tight (190 Nm + 90°). The 12 point shouldered M20 nut (30 mm AF) is shallow so the socket needs sideways support otherwise it may slip off. This is how I managed it with a pile of wooden blocks for support for the 18" breaker bar plus me standing on the end and hopping up and down. I must have been imparting in excess of 355 Nm to loosen it I think. This is done before raising the wheel off the ground.

Note that protecting the bearing doesn't matter as we are replacing it here but if you were intending to keep the existing bearing you shouldn't let the weight of the car rest on a loosened bearing - so only loosen it a little and take as much weight off the wheel before loosening all the way.

Raise the wheel, having loosened the bolts and support the car safely on jack and axle stand and remove the wheel. Next remove the two bolts holding the brake caliper carrier to the hub - they are tight (125 Nm) with locking serrations under the shoulder - so come loose with a crack.

Wiggle the caliper to prize the pads apart a little so the assembly slips past the disc edge ridge and hang the caliper up to avoid straining the hose.

Remove the disc retaining screw. This may be tight and to avoid stripping the head it's a good idea to apply a well fitting Pozidrive screwdriver and whack the screwdriver end-on with a hammer to loosen the screw first. If you do strip it you can remove it with a centre punch whacked off centre at an angle with a hammer to drive it round. M6x12 to replace.

Then remove the hub nut.

Now the tricky bit - removing the inner hub. I tried using a two legged puller against the end of the drive shaft but it just pushed the drive shaft in and as it took up the strain it was clear any more force was going to put undue strain on the balls in the CV joints and gearbox bearings.

So it was down to a slide hammer. I should have bought a bigger one to suit a five stud hub. The one I had was for a four stud so only one bolt would fit and I had to use a Mole wrench to clamp the other side - a bit Mickey Mouse but it worked well enough holding together.

After many blows with the slide weight against the far end of the bolt, the hub had moved a bit and would wobble a little but it would not come out any further. I was starting to get a little concerned but adding the mass of a lump hammer behind the weight and delivering a number of crashing heavy blows I eventually managed to dislodge the hub and it fell out.

Here's the reason why the hub was so difficult to remove - it had been removed previously by battering the inside end edge with a drift which had distorted and burred the tube end to a larger diameter causing it to become stuck in the bearing inner race. Presumably it was difficult to assemble for this reason too.

The next problem you'll find is that the inner race of the outside of the bearing will invariably be stuck well into the hub with no edge to grab and remove it. Another thing of note (if you click to zoom in) is the damaged area on the race. Could this have been due to overloading the bearing when pulling in the enlarged hub?

The easy way to remove it is to use a mini grinder to cut a slit most of the way through the hard race. I used a diamond cutting disc here. Don't forget to use safety goggles here :!:

Then split it with a sharp cold chisel. This definitely needs safety goggles to protect against the race exploding into high velocity shards which can sometimes happen :!:

You can then get a small chisel in through one of the access holes and start to wedge the race up the tube.

Then you can get the legs of a puller underneath and finally pull it off.

The tube was in a sorry state with evident distortion and marks from previous attempts at disassembly.

I spent some time sanding off the protruding lip to get the tube end round and straight again so it would easily fit into the new bearing ID, finally finishing off with some wet and dry. Luckily the basic shape and registering faces were still true.

Next you can remove the large circlip holding the bearing in.

Before going any further with the bearing you'll need to pull the half shaft end out. The best way is to split the ball joint. The three nuts on the underside of the ball joint to the wishbone could also be undone but you will risk losing wheel alignment doing that. Splitting the pin on the top of the ball joint won't lose your wheel alignment.

You'll need an 18mm ring spanner to undo the nut.

To get the ball joint splitter inserted you are best raising the hub, compressing the suspension, to make the wishbone more horizontal and gain enough gap. It doesn't take much force to split.

The drive shaft can then be pulled free from the hub.

Now then. Here's my bearing pulling kit as it arrived. The case was a different colour but the important bits were the same. 13 thrust plate discs of various sizes, four receiving cup tubes, two stepped receiving cup tops, two thrust washers, pulling bolt and deep hex nut.

You need to first find the right size thrust plate. What you are doing here is to pull on the inner race of the inside face of the bearing. The balls will transfer the force to the outer race of the bearing (damage to the old balls/face doesn't matter). The disc needs to clear the hub and follow the bearing through. The one I selected had an ID of 33.3 mm and an OD of 63.5 mm.

You can try the plates against the new bearing.

You next need to assemble the tool. Here's the bolt inserted with a thrust washer. Make sure everything is well greased on all thrust faces and threaded sections.

Next chose the correct size receiving cup and stepped cap by comparing to the bearing.

Then another thrust washer and deep hex nut, all generously greased.

Then you can start to pull the bearing out.

This was very difficult and required heaving on a T bar whilst applying some leg work to the ratchet. It was a heave for every 30° or so and fought every step of the way.

Half way through I reversed the bolt and deep nut - the deep nut is designed to travel into the bearing space and still be accessed by a spanner. I probably should have started this way round.

Finally it fell out!

Next, clean up the bearing bore with some abrasive paper and clean out the circlip groove. You can see the ridge at the rear that the bearing must press up against. Make sure this is scraped clean.

In the bearing kit you'll find some assembly paste. Smear the bore and bearing faces.

Here's where you use the 73.6 mm OD thrust plate, so it ONLY presses on the bearing outer race edge.

On the rear of the hub you'll be able to find a thrust plate of the correct size to sit neatly on the ridges outside the bub bore. This is assembled with the ID boss facing out, so there is no chance of coming into contact with the bearing's inner race and transferring ANY force through the balls in the race.

The process of pulling in a clean bearing with the right tools and assembly face is very satisfying.

Finally you can get the circlip in place. Looking good so far.

Now you need to pull the inner hub into place. The important thing again is not to transfer any force through the balls between inner and outer race. The forces now should only be applied to the inner race. Choose a small enough plate to sit securely on the inner race at the back of the hub.

With a suitable plate pressing on the outside of the inner hub it's now easy to pull in the hub all the way. Don't forget the assembly paste.

Now you can coat the drive shaft splines with some copper grease and poke it through the inner hub. You can now reassemble the ball joint. You'll need to counter hold the pin with an Allen key. Tightening torque is 75 Nm.

Replace the disc with some copper grease on the hub faces and its retaining screw. Replace the brake caliper having first pinged out any compressed rust in between the teeth at the back of the bolt head locking ridges. Tightening torque 125 Nm.

Now tighten the hub nut reasonably tight. You can counter hold the disc with an Allen key inserted all the way into one of the vents, resting on the caliper. Do not fully tighten the nut and risk damaging the disc.

Replace the road wheel and gently lower the wheel enough to contact the ground and stop it turning. Do not put full vehicle weight on the bearing before it is fully tightened. You can use the same method to counter support the breaker bar as before whilst standing on the end of the bar. The correct tightening torque specification is 190 Nm + 90°. The wheel can be lowered or wedged as necessary to stop it turning.

Here's the old bearing disassembled.

Here you can see the inner race from the back of the hub. This, like the outside inner race, has sustained damage suggesting overload, possibly during assembly judging by the ball spaced marks, or because of excessive load from preload. This could result from damage to the inner hub from previous bearing removal distorting the bearing and making it oval during use or otherwise not allowing the bearing to sit properly. Tightening the bearing with the wheel under load from the weight of the vehicle could also cause a bad fit. I hope the smoothing I applied to the inner hub is enough to alleviate future problems. Perhaps the car will get to 500k miles before it fails :wink:

poghead · Feb 29, 2016

Good write up, going to be tackling mine this weekend.

Pog

ryanmtt · Mar 1, 2016

+1 great write up John

warrenstuart · Mar 1, 2016

Excellent write up well done!

Warren.

sallyday10 · Mar 1, 2016

Superb work, the definitive guide for sure.

Much appreciated John, thank you.

Mike.

chisharpe · Jan 19, 2018

To the guy that wrote this I need to thank you and also a bit of criticism.

You made this guide so clear and easy it made me think this job would be a doddle!

Anyways I'm nearly finished. Things I have learned are. You 100% need a slide hammer. The kit is perfect and did it's job well. Make sure you have adjustable scanners or sockets big enough for both ends. Pretty sure there 26mm or 28mm.

Also I ended up using a 600mm breaker bar which I added a 1.5meter bar too and it was still touch getting that bolt undone.

And the last one was the nuts on the Caliper! I had to use a 450 breaker bar to snap these babies off.

Anyways thank you again. Going to finish bolting the calliper up and wheels tomorrow and will go for a test drive.

John-H · Jan 19, 2018

Good luck with the last bit. I'm glad the guide came in useful. Reading through it again brought it all back!

Sadly the S3 didn't get to 500k miles because someone drive into the back of the car at 293k miles and wrote it off - only a service away from 300k

It's a darn good puller kit that. A real pleasure to use. The forces you have to apply are huge though. To think the first wheel bearings I ever changed could be tapped out with a hammer and a screwdriver - a world away!

chisharpe · Jan 23, 2018

Lol so turns out I replaced a perfectly good bearing :lol:

Finished the job then went for a drive and oh what's that the noise is still there! Ffs I genuinely thought it was on the drivers side. Anyways que me jacking the car up and spinning all the wheels and turns out the left one just doesn't feel like the rest and there is also a bit of play.

So now I have all the tools I needed and I know what I'm doing the job is very simple. Took me an hour to get the old bearing out just waiting for the new one to arrive in the post. So I would say it your competent and have all the tools this is an hour to 2 your job depending on tools and experience you have.

I'll get some pictures up soon but there is damage on the outside inner race is worse than yours.

Also I used a new hub instead of faffing about with a dremel and cold chisel

John-H · Jan 23, 2018

Oh well done

. To be fair it's not easy to diagnose spinning the wheel unloaded by hand and driving resonates through the whole car. The easiest way to tell I found was to hold the strut spring and rotate the wheel with a free hand. The inaudible low frequency vibration of the worn bearing could be felt easily instead.

chisharpe · Jan 25, 2018

What a sense of accomplishment lol finally all back together and no more sound it's glorious. even if I did have to do it twice lol

rlszer · Jan 25, 2018

chisharpe said:
What a sense of accomplishment lol finally all back together and no more sound it's glorious. even if I did have to do it twice lol

Good job. The bearing race looks like mine did, once I had it out. Only differance in doing the job, I had a press to hand but had to pull more stuff apart

SPECSMAN · Jan 26, 2018

Excellent work and a great write up; nice and methodical, lovely to see.

You were so close to total removal of the hub carrier, I would have done so and used a bench press.

On the subject of diagnosis.......

Whilst driving the car, the hum/whine/groan or grumble will reduce as the load comes off that wheel...for example: if your front nearside is noisy, the noise will reduce on a sharp left-hander, and the noise will be worse on a right-hander (as the load increases).

Saves the frustration of replacing the wrong side!

Putting my professional head on now....

My brother in law, (qualified HGV mechanic, retired) lost an eye to a flying splinter of white metal, from a bearing; and he was only holding the shaft for a colleague.

I know it's not macho, but USE SAFETY SPECS, I am not trying to sell you some! A fiver from Screwfix could save your sight.
If you wear specs, buy the "over-specs" type.

CR39 resin lenses, (used in specs) are not shatterproof. Lecture over!

All the best.

Specsman 8)

NickG · Jan 26, 2018

Good work chaps!

On the same lines of Specsman, although not necessarily safety related, i'd highly highly recommend investing in an Impact gun if you plan to do anything like this on a regular basis. I have a Milwaukee M18 impact wrench and it genuinely is the best tool i've ever bought, hubnuts and bolts come off with no effort at all, the upper strut mount nut is simple to remove, i haven't found something it hasn't managed to undo to date!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Milwaukee-...XD93VM/ref=sr_1_4?s=diy&ie=UTF8&qid=1516959822&sr=1-4&refinements=p_4:Milwaukee

I know it's expensive and not for everyone, but if you can afford one, do it! (It may even save your eyes!)

SPECSMAN · Jan 26, 2018

NickG said:
I know it's expensive and not for everyone, but if you can afford one, do it! (It may even save your eyes!)

More likely to save your *ollocks than your eyes! (another worthy cause) No more massive levering required.

I understand that this is the weapon of choice for removal of the turbo/exhaust manifold gasket bolts?

Nice piece of kit.

8)

John-H · Jan 26, 2018

Good advice about the goggles/glasses - it often goes without saying and I use them all the time for things like that but you can be surprised. I know someone who was lucky not to come off worse but had to have lots of small shards of hearing removed from his face after splitting a race with a chisel.

NickG · Jan 26, 2018

SPECSMAN said:
NickG said:

I know it's expensive and not for everyone, but if you can afford one, do it! (It may even save your eyes!)

Click to expand...

More likely to save your *ollocks than your eyes! (another worthy cause) No more massive levering required.

I understand that this is the weapon of choice for removal of the turbo/exhaust manifold gasket bolts?

Nice piece of kit.

8)

:lol: Them too!

Yeah works brilliant on them also! I use it to undo pretty much everything these days, even the 6 front bumper fixings along the slam panel, all 6 of them off in under 60 seconds... you can't do that with a ratchet!

MonkeyBoysDad · Nov 5, 2018

John-H "Next chose the correct size receiving cup and stepped cap by comparing to the bearing."

What was the OD and ID of the receiving cup?

Thanks
Ben

SC0TTRS · Nov 5, 2018

SPECSMAN said:
I know it's not macho, but USE SAFETY SPECS, I am not trying to sell you some! A fiver from Screwfix could save your sight.
If you wear specs, buy the "over-specs" type.

CR39 resin lenses, (used in specs) are not shatterproof. Lecture over!

All the best.

Specsman 8)

When I was working the spanners I hardly used safety equipment, never saw the danger when your younger, (work in IT now so the most dangerous thing is Malware :lol: ) but more older (and wiser i hope) I hardly do anything on the car without latex gloves/safety specs, especially when underneath. 8)

John-H · Nov 5, 2018

MonkeyBoysDad said:
John-H "Next chose the correct size receiving cup and stepped cap by comparing to the bearing."

What was the OD and ID of the receiving cup?

Thanks
Ben

Hi Ben,

I couldn't tell you offhand accept to say a little bit bigger than the 74 mm bearing OD and quite a bit longer than 40 mm to accommodate the capping piece. I just choose the first that fits. It sits neatly against the hub too. The cup wall thickness is probably only 3 mm at a guess. If it can wait I could probably find out later.

MonkeyBoysDad · Nov 5, 2018

John-H said:
MonkeyBoysDad said:

John-H "Next chose the correct size receiving cup and stepped cap by comparing to the bearing."

What was the OD and ID of the receiving cup?

Thanks
Ben

Click to expand...

Hi Ben,

I couldn't tell you offhand accept to say a little bit bigger than the 74 mm bearing OD and quite a bit longer than 40 mm to accommodate the capping piece. I just choose the first that fits. It sits neatly against the hub too. The cup wall thickness is probably only 3 mm at a guess. If it can wait I could probably find out later.

Thanks John

yeah i'm not doing the job until the weekend but was going to find some scrap tube at work and turn it to the required size. If you could measure it that would be fantastic

Ben

John-H · Nov 5, 2018

Looks like the tube was:

OD: 83.02
ID: 76.77
Wall: 2.99
Length: 63.91

If the numbers (mm) don't quite add up it's because the tube is slightly ovoid.

silkman · Nov 6, 2018

Great write up John. I guess it was another case of "if you want something done proper, do it yourself"

MonkeyBoysDad · Nov 6, 2018

John-H said:
Looks like the tube was:

OD: 83.02
ID: 76.77
Wall: 2.99
Length: 63.91

If the numbers (mm) don't quite add up it's because the tube is slightly ovoid.

Cheers John, you're a star.
hopefully have my bearings replaced this weekend, i need to check the camber too as i changed the springs and ball joints a while back but didn't realise the bottom ball joints are on slots.

barry_m2 · Nov 6, 2018

Rather than having to press bearings in and out, would it be easier to get this.... (available for the 8N too).

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AUDI-TT-ROAD ... 1438.l2649

keithriley · Dec 19, 2018

barry_m2 said:
Rather than having to press bearings in and out, would it be easier to get this.... (available for the 8N too).

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AUDI-TT-ROAD ... 1438.l2649

Not for the front of a MK1 TT (8N), I'm afraid its a bearing in the steering knuckle. The rears MIGHT be like this though

John-H · Dec 31, 2018

keithriley said:
barry_m2 said:

Rather than having to press bearings in and out, would it be easier to get this.... (available for the 8N too).

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AUDI-TT-ROAD ... 1438.l2649

Click to expand...

Not for the front of a MK1 TT (8N), I'm afraid its a bearing in the steering knuckle. The rears MIGHT be like this though

The tears on the Mk1 quattro press in and out the same as the front.

EDIT: Meant to say "rears" not "tears" although tears can often be what you end up with :roll:

How To - change a wheel bearing on a Mk1 TT

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