[Nissan4Life]

I am in the middle of replacing my rear axle seal, and I bungled up the job. Now I need to cut off the new bearing. I do not think that I can cut off the bearing without damaging the new axle seal. Time to source new parts and I am in a time crunch.

Timken Set10 bearings are easy to find. A note these are the OEM bearings and cost about $30. You can buy the Nissan bearing for $60+ but you will just get a timken set10.

Now for the actual seal: Nissan Rear Axle Seal - 43252-7S200. These are a little more difficult to come by as there is no nissan dealer locally. On-line sources are slow to ship or want expedited shipping fees that are more than the part itself. O Reilys has a master pro seal in stock. I wonder how this on would fair. It isn't like the OEM nissan seals have such a good track record. Has anyone used this seal?
MasterPro Bearing/Seal 710499 - Wheel Seal | O'Reilly Auto Parts

 

[Nissan4Life]

Well I was able to get the inner bearing race cut off without damaging the seal. I placed a shield in front of the seal while doing the cutting. I also ground down the bearing nearest to the seal at 90 degree from the direction one would cut a notch in. Basically ground it down instead of cutting a notch, this way the blade was away from the seal. Waiting for the new bearing before slapping everything back together.

 

[FieldDay]

Why did you have to cut the bearing off? Is that the normal procedure? Ive never done rear axle seals.

 

[Nissan4Life]

Why did you have to cut the bearing off? Is that the normal procedure? Ive never done rear axle seals.

The collar needs to be drilled/cut but according to the factory service manual the bearing can be pressed off with a bearing separator. But I am not sure how one would achieve this as the bolts for the retainer plate will get in the way.
http://www.clubfrontier.org/forums/f23/diy-axle-seals-bearings-m226-72252/

 

[Nissan4Life]

Finished last night. THe hardest part is actually the getting the ebrakes back together.

Still need to fill the diff and test drive.

 

[kevinjohnson3216]

How did you press on the new bearing?

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[Nissan4Life]

How did you press on the new bearing?

A big ol pipe. It was attachlly a 2 foot section of hitch receiver tubing that I had laying around, which I had for a bumper build.

The nice thing about cutting off the old bearing's inner race is that now you have a perfectly fitting tool to apply force to the new bearing race with. Without the old bearing race you will strike the bearing itself instead of the race.

I heated the bearing up with a heat gun prior to installation. This causes the inner race to expand slightly. These bearing use a metal bearing retainer so you don't have to worry about melting the retainer. Even then I used a heat gun instead of a torch as I did not want to cook out all of the grease.

The locking collar has a much greater interference fit than the bearing; read: much harder to install. In order to make the job easier I heated this guy up to a higher temp using a propane torch.

You can feel when the bearing and the collar seat. The hit changes tone, and you can feel the force of your strike reverberating back from the stop flange. A 2nd good indicator that you have seated it all the way is due to the fact that the snap ring grove is exposed.