Bearing re-pack help.

[MSHardeman]

More to the saga....but good news this time.

Right after I called Merlin to get the hub nuts shipped to me, I went out and bought an impact driver. Tried it on the goofy little screws and NO LUCK. The impact driver only stripped them out more.

After a little cussing (OK, A LOT of cussing) and some tool throwing I grabbed the screw extractor and chucked it into my drill fully intending to just drill the heads off of the screws and just wait for the nuts to come in from Merlin. As I was drilling the first screw out (keep in mind that the extractor drills with the drill in reverse) the drill bit part of the extractor must have grabbed the screw enough and it backed right out!! WTF!? Must have been a fluke...NOPE, same thing on the second screw...and the third...and the...you get the idea. This same process even worked on the headless screw. Well-I'll-be-darn!

So, now is all right with the world and I have completely torn down the driver side and I am waiting for everything to dry off after degreasing and washing it so I can put it all back together.

I'm still going to let the hub nuts come as I'm sure it's always good to have a couple lying around.

Thanks to everyone for the input. First round in Moab is on me.

I just love our little "family".

Mark

[Joe Isuzu]

glad there's a happy ending for you on this Mark! I can totally empathize with you about the cursing and tool throwing! My knuckles are pretty scuffed up from working on the car this weekend, I've been telling people at work I've started my own neighbourhood "Fight Club"

[Ldub]

More to the saga....but good news this time.

Right after I called Merlin to get the hub nuts shipped to me, I went out and bought an impact driver. Tried it on the goofy little screws and NO LUCK. The impact driver only stripped them out more.

After a little cussing (OK, A LOT of cussing) and some tool throwing I grabbed the screw extractor and chucked it into my drill fully intending to just drill the heads off of the screws and just wait for the nuts to come in from Merlin. As I was drilling the first screw out (keep in mind that the extractor drills with the drill in reverse) the drill bit part of the extractor must have grabbed the screw enough and it backed right out!! WTF!? Must have been a fluke...NOPE, same thing on the second screw...and the third...and the...you get the idea. This same process even worked on the headless screw. Well-I'll-be-darn!

So, now is all right with the world and I have completely torn down the driver side and I am waiting for everything to dry off after degreasing and washing it so I can put it all back together.

I'm still going to let the hub nuts come as I'm sure it's always good to have a couple lying around.

Thanks to everyone for the input. First round in Moab is on me.

I just love our little "family".

Mark

If it comes down to the wire, consult you're local hardware dood...I replaced all the little (soft) hub screws with stainless, that were readily available from my local Ace Hardware.

[johnnyapollo]

Those small screws are also available in the screw bin at Home Depot. They can right out for me during the rotor replacement, but I bought some extras anyway just in case they were needed.

-- John

[MSHardeman]

I'm sure that you're sick of hearing about this by now, but I appreciate you letting me vent.

There is yet another twist to my rotor replacement saga. Yesterday after reassembling the driver side hub assembly without a hitch I was bolting the new disk down to the passenger side hub and ended up cross threading a bolt so now I'm dead in the water AGAIN. I live in a small mountian town, and the biggest parts store we have is NAPA. They don't have this bolt in their system, and they don't have anything big enough to rethread it. SO, called Merlin AGAIN and he is overnighting a couple of them to me so hopefully by Wednesday night I will FINALLY have my VX back together just in time to break the brakes in for Moab. Heck, I may be riding the brakes on the way to Moab to help seat them in.

I'm pretty darned sure that I've tightened everything down, but if you're behind me in Moab and you see something leaking underneath, honk your horn, scream, and make a general commotion because it's probably brake fluid....and that's kind of important on the trails.

[Dare2Dream]

Let us know how the rethreading goes. I once broke an EGR bolt and the mechanic at a local shop removed it and did the rethread. Since then, I'm afraid to remove the bolt since I don't know how good of a job he did, but it's been holding fine for 2 years now.