Thread: Old Nissan Safari query

Helping out a young guy with a 1998 Nissan Safari (the short wheel base jobbie).
He has wrecked a front wheel bearing (started making a noise as he drove along).
He has pulled the front hub apart (sort of) to expose a buggered inner wheel bearing.
The inner race is well stuck to the shaft.
Never seen inside one of these before, but it looks like we need to remove the front stub from out of that hub unit at the front (there's a steel ring with 5, maybe 6, bolts holding it on).
I 'think' that needs to be removed to allow that front stub to come out so that we can smack the inner race off.
Any of you done this job before and can give some solid info please?
Thanks.

Just slice the inner race in place

Originally Posted by longrange308

Just slice the inner race in place

With what?
Can't get a disc grinder in there, don't have a gas axe.

Yep you can do that, just start carefully unbolting stuff until you can get access to what you need. I had to do that once to get one of mine off (the race failed on me when I was trying to remove it and spat balls through everything so needed to completely strip it to recover one offending and very shy and retiring part).

It's not a very complicated setup, I can't remember if I had to pull the swivel hub unit and CV or whatever to do that job as it was about 2005 and I did the swivel hub bearings and seals as a separate job so had it all apart anyway.

Consider doing those bearings and seal anyway, as you are 90% of the way there and it removes the possibility of those bits failing shortly afterwards. The swivel bearings come with shims that align the hub on the axle, I got lucky on one side and slapping everything together same as it came out worked but the other side needed to be reshimmed and the ride height reset (probably it had been dicked with in the past and not set up again right, which is why it fell apart on me).

If you wanted to be argumentative with the inner race and didn't want to strip it apart, you could protect the axle and run a short bead of weld around the race and expand it. It will just pull straight off like that. Having said that, if you don't have the gear to heat the inner race and remove it you probably don't want to start welding on the thing!