Don’t do what I did one time , and blogged about it. Don’t buy one of those axle nut slugging wrench things. Puts too much stress in bearings i th8nk.

I’ve had times where I couldn’t keep the van from moving when trying to remove nut with cheater bar. That is, 3 ft 3/4” drive breaker bar with a pipe to extend more. Was climbing the van over the chocks.

Had a friend use his impact on it, no prob. 

Alistair 

> On Apr 21, 2022, at 12:17 PM, Jack R <jack007@comcast.net> wrote:
> 
> As I recall... I did mine myself, and the only issue was finding a torque
> wrench to put 350 ft lbs on the rear axle nut.
> 
> https://shufti.blog/2011/04/16/vanagon-rear-wheel-bearing-replacement/
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of B
> Feddish
> Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2022 10:58 AM
> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> Subject: Rear wheel bearings
> 
> After 250K miles it looks like the rear wheel bearings need replacment.
> I've done the front successfully in the past but the rears look a bit more
> complicated.  I've contacted a few shops and the time estimates (including
> removing the inevitably rusty stripped bolts) are quite high for this job.
> I was thinking of maybe tackling this myself. I've checked out a few videos
> and some have the axle coming out and other have the wheel bearings, etc.
> removed from the back and other vidoes showing the bearing housing  being
> removed from the front after moving the backing plate.  So the question is,
> which method is better and are either of them doable by an amateur (me) that
> VW turned into a part time mechanic 40 years ago?
> 
> Thanks
> Bryan