Rear Bearings

[donnieg]

can someone give me some advice please.I need to renew my back wheel bearings and i was wondering if they are quite easy to do and will i need to get a press or can you do them by hand. I am not very mechanically minded but i must start somewhere as garages are getting to expensive.

[kevtherev]

Are they whining/noisy?

[donnieg]

yes they are and there is a bit of play in the wheel

[kevtherev]

play in the wheel is normal on the vertical plane but there should be none on the horizontal.
Even new bearings have play verticaly.

The outer rear bearings are plain roller bearings with a spacer/sleeve between it and inner ball-bearing. They usually come as one unit (but without the spacer which doesn't usually wear, a thick-wwalled hard-steel tube). These can be really tightened up to their required torque using a 3/4" drive socket, 'T bar' and a 4 foot tube or scaffold pole, go to 350~375 ft-lb if you still have movement when they are torqued up then you'll need new bearings

do you have a Haynes?

[donnieg]

yes i had a look at it and will give it a go in 2 weeks as we are of camping up to gairloch this weekend