2008 Mazda 6 Front Driver Side Wheel Bearing TRQ BHA54617

Hi, I'm Mike from 1A Auto. We've been selling auto parts for over 30 years.

Hi everyone. Sue from 1A Auto here. Today we're working on a 2007 Mazda 6 sedan behind me. We're installing pressed in bearing and the knuckle. If you need these parts or any other parts to your car, click on the link below on 1aauto.com.

We're going to start by removing the wheel. I have it partially on the ground so I can break the lug nut free. It's a 21mm socket. I got my half inch breaker bar.

Alright, so now that those are broken free and I can turn it by hand, I'm going to raise my vehicle. I have a two-post lift. If you have a floor jack and jack stands, do the same thing.

So now with the car up in the air, we're going to remove the lug nuts and set them aside. Perfect, it's frozen on there. This happens quite often, when you have an aluminum rim with a steel front end. Obviously the steel and the aluminum, they oxidize together.

So I'm going to show you how to take this wheel off safely. A lot of people don't think about this. I know I didn't the first couple of times I did it. Take a lug nut and just put it back on by hand. Not all the way, half way. Now when you take your rubber mallet or your pry bar and you hit it from the other side, it doesn't fly off.

I take a rubber mallet and I hit the rubber part of the tire on the back side. That came off nice and easy. Sometimes they don't want to come off that easy, and you just gotta keep giving it an effort back and forth. Now we can remove that lug nut and dismount the tire.

To remove the axle nut, I have to do this by myself. I don't have someone to sit and put their foot on the brake and hold the brake pedal, so I'm using a long pry bar. I'm going to line it up on my wheel studs. 32mm socket, and I'm going to be going counter clockwise.

With this, it's 202 foot pounds, that's really on there. So I'm going to use a breaker bar, and an old fence post. So now with that broken free ... Obviously it goes without saying to be careful. This can slip out. Do it at your own discretion.

We're going to remove the caliper from the caliper bracket. I'm going to take the caliper bleeder screw boot off and catch it. That's an 8mm socket or wrench, and I'm going to break that free and let the fluid drip into the catch pan. I'm going to push the piston back. You don't want on any vehicle that has ABS, you don't want to push that piston back with that bleeder screw closed. If the fluid goes in reverse flow, you could damage the ABS module.

So with that dripping, I'm going to dismount, I'm just going to stop that actually, 'cause I didn't dismount the actual caliper bracket yet. So you can take those two bolts out. But it is broken free, so it will be effortless when it comes to that point.

These are two 14mm sockets. We're going to disconnect the caliper sliders. Break them both free. Just pull them out by hand. Before I dismount this caliper from the bracket, I will reopen that bleeder screw, I'm just going to crack that bleeder screw open, and I'm going to remove this caliper from the caliper bracket. Make sure you have a catch pan to catch that brake fluid.

At this point I'm going to examine my caliper piston for any damage on the seal. I have no moisture coming through, no brake fluid. That's a positive sign. This is the dust boot cover for the piston. It all looks in great shape. There's no cracks on the bracket.

So I'm going to push this piston back. I just use a pair of welder clamps, and watch the aim of that 'cause it's going to come out. This also is the right way to do a brake job in the sense of you'll know if your caliper piston is sticking, if you have a frozen caliper. It's defeated the job if your caliper piston is no good and you put new pads on with rotors. You'll be able to tell if it's frozen, if it sticks. You'll know when it hits bottom. It's flush right with the actual caliper.

Now with that clamp in place holding the piston back I'm going to close the bleeder screw. I don't want any air going in reverse. Now you can take the clamp off. Now I like to take a bungee cord and I'm going to safely set this caliper aside. You never want to hang it from the actual flex hose, it could do damage to that. So I'll just take advantage of the upper control arm, swing it up, it's out of the way.

So now that I removed the caliper piston, section of the caliper where I put the caliper bracket and the two pads. This is the caliper hardware kit. So you've got the anti-rattle clips, two of them. This one is broken.

So this is a good time that when you're ordering your parts, look up the caliper hardware and order it because this is, you're going to need this now. And you started your brake job with pads and rotors, but you don't have the actual hardware.

Just a couple more dollars, and it's worth it, 'cause these do rot out, and they lose their spring and tension, and they stop the pads from making clatter sound. They add tension to it. You'll also get new tins, which will save you time from cleaning them up, and if they're rusted you're going to need them.

So now I'm going to dismount the caliper bracket, 17mm socket or wrench. You got two of them, one on the top and one on the bottom. The reason why I'm taking the bracket off before the pads, I tried to take the pads off, but they're stuck in the actual caliper bracket. So I'm going to end up having to hammer them out once I take the bracket out of the way.

You'll be able to see the surface of this rotor once the caliper bracket pads move off and the rotted metal. Inadequate stopping. So to remove the rotor from the hub, this has two mounting screws that just holds the rotor in place. It's what the manufacturer chose to do. Some cars do it. Some cars don't.

So I have a impact screwdriver, which is you lock it in place and hammer it. So if you don't have an impact screwdriver, you could try to use a Philips, it's more difficult because the actual hammering slide gives it a twist. You could try tapping it with a hammer around the hub, just to loosen it up, or spray it with some sort of penetrating spray. You could go to 1aauto.com, we actually sell the impact screwdriver.

So now that I have the mounting screws off I'm just going to spray in where the hub goes, just to try to give it some help along the way, 'cause we're going to end up having to hit this with a hammer. Wake up the neighbor's dog.

I'm going to hit the rotor surface, 'cause I'm replacing the rotor, and not hit the hub because I don't want to miss and his the threads on the lug nut. You see it started to move. I go back and forth.

I'm working that back and forth and all the rust is coming out between the hub and the rotor. Now that I know it's loosened up, I'll hit it from the back surface. A little stubborn. Just a matter of working that rust out. Wonderful.

I'm going to start by removing the ball joint nut into the knuckle. This is a 24mm socket, or 15/16, if you have standard. 15/16 has a little wobble to it, but it will work if you don't have the metric.

So this is usually pretty on there real strong. So I've got my longest ratchet, half inch ratchet, and I'm going to use a piece of steel that we have, just to get some leverage, and I'm going to break that free. You can use air tools if you have air tools.

Now that I removed the ball joint nut, I'm going to move onto the lower strut wishbone bolts that go straight through in a nut. The nut has a clip on it that bottoms it out so you don't need to use a wrench. It's a 15mm socket.

Okay, and I'm going to hammer this out. I'm going to try without a pickle fork, which is a ball joint tool. So you see it, and if it pops out, fabulous. If not, we might have to move on to a pickle fork.

I'm going to give it a good, strong hit, right here on the knuckle, hopefully vibrate this ball joint stud loose. Alright, that's good enough for me to know that it's not going to jolt free. So I have to move onto the pickle fork.

So this is what they call a ball joint fork, or pickle fork. See how it has the wedge to it? So I'm going to guide it in there and it should wedge in there and split the ball joint from the knuckle. Just going to give it a quick spray, see if I can help things along a little bit. Wonderful.

This is the spacer that I'm talking about that comes with this style front end. It goes into the knuckle. Sometimes it will come out with the actual stud on the ball joint. In this case, I lucked out and the ball joint actually popped out of it. So that is in great favor.

Hope that works for you, because you can leave this pressed in, 'cause you have to replace it back into the knuckle for the new ball joint. It does not come with this. I'll end up taking a brass punch and hammer and hitting this down flush and I hope it worked like that for you at home. If not, if this does come out with the actual stud of the ball joint, you have to go to a machine shop, 'cause that's pressed on. They have to press it off for you.

If you were doing a hub and bearing on this knuckle, you would not need to remove the control arms, front and rear completely. You would only need to detach the ball joints from the knuckle, once again, if you are doing a hub and bearing press in.

Now I'm going to use my brass punch and a hammer to put that piece back into the knuckle, and I've soaked it quite a bit, so hopefully this will work without a press, like a ball join press. That's it.

So now we're going to remove the nut from the knuckle, from the rear control arm ball joint. It is a 15/16 or 24mm. I have a half inch ratchet on that. You can see the movement from the CV shaft.

So if I was to remove ... If I was doing the job and I was doing both lower control arms, the front and the rear, I would have loosened up both these nuts at the same time before I dismounted the actual control arm from this knuckle. But where I did that for a different show, and now I'm doing the rear, you have to be careful from the movement, 'cause you don't want to pull that axle out of the joint.

Now I'm going to remove the rearward control arm ball joint from the knuckle, and I'm going to use my pickle fork. I'm going to go in right between the ball joint and the knuckle, make some noise here and see if I can separate them. That's how you do it with the big hammer.

Now that I've broken free my axle nut, I can raise the vehicle up to a good level and I can continue to spin it off. 32mm socket, put it aside. Next step is to remove the tie rod end from the knuckle, and this has a cotter pin in it, so I'm just going to take the cotter pin out. There we go. Discard the old cotter pin.

So now I'm going to put in a 17mm socket on that. I'm going to give that a quick spray, I can see there's dirt and mud all in the threads of that. Use a half inch ratchet and socket and I'm going to break that free. Now I hit it on these two ears. Only had to hit one.

So I'm going to disconnect the ABS line right here, the wire bracket, it's a 12mm socket. Take this bolt out of the way. That's how bad it's rusted in there. The tab is still in there. I'm just going to get a flathead screwdriver and pry that out. There we go.

I like to, sometimes I put the bolt back where it came from. In this one, there's a lot of hardware left around, that way it doesn't get lost and there's no confusion.

So now I'm going to try to remove the ABS sensor. That is a 12mm socket. I have an extension on my socket 3/8 drive. I'm going to see if it snaps free. Well, that, I lucked out. Still not in the clear yet, 'cause the ABS sensor's not out. But at least I know the bolt it comes free.

Now that that bolt is out, I'm going to grab it firmly and just move it back and forth and see if I can get it to pull out of the knuckle, and I did it. A lot of times you'll find this is frozen in there and corroded right here and it won't come out.

You can try to use a flathead chisel and chisel it. But if you damage this, you have to replace this sensor, or your ABS light will come on. Now I'm just going to set this aside. I'll mount it up here, somewhere it won't get damaged.

While we're up there, this is the last thing to undo is the top control on that, which is a 17mm socket. I've already got the CV shaft spindle partially pushed out. I'm going to hold, let that sit in there so it gives me some support once I take that out. And then I can walk it right out.

This spindle gets rusted really bad. I've already replaced the axle. So it worked out good for me. If yours is rusted, you're going to need to get a brass punch, or something that has a seat that will fit in that manufacturer's hole, 'cause you don't want to hit the threads, and you're going to have to hammer it out. Spray it with rust inhibitor, let is soak a little bit, and just work that CV shaft right out.

So now, with my 17mm socket, I'm going to loosen up the upper control arm. Going to take that ball joint right out of the upper control, right out of the knuckle, so that I can remove this knuckle and press out the hub and bearing.

Just going to have to hit that slightly with a hammer, and tap it right off. There we go. Now I had to control that because it just falls right to the ground. Now we have our knuckle disassembled from the vehicle.

So to get this hub out of the knuckle, I'll show you the hub. This is what they consider a hub. It presses through this knuckle, presses through into the bearing. So if you have a press at home, you would use a press. And if you have a press I don't need to tell you how to use it, you know how to use it.

In this case, we're going to show you a method of trying to get it out without a press. First thing is I'm going to spray some rust penetrant, let that soak a little bit.

The good news is, the hub is never really pressed in too hard. So I take the ball-peen part of my hammer that fits in there nice and snug, and I carefully place it on my leg and I hit it with a bigger hammer. And it comes right out. See, it's coming right out. That's how it goes out. Shoots out across the floor. But that is out of the way.

We have a new one that we're going to install anyways. Now, the important part is this lock ring. See how rusted it is? We're definitely going to spray that now, and let that soak.

So the bearing came apart. This is the hub. This is part of the race of the bearing. It's a sealed bearing. That's the outer ring. We're going to install a new hub so we don't have to use this one. If we were going to use it, you would have to pull the race off of this hub, sand it down, clean it.

Okay, so I have to get this lock ring out in order to press the bearing out this way. I'm going to flip it over in the press and push it out. But we have to take the lock ring out first. I have soaked it and let it sprayed, sprayed it and let it soak.

Now I'm just going to take a chisel, or a punch, whatever you have at home, and you've gotta try to move it. They have nice two ears on it, so I'm just going to work it back and forth. That's a good sign. It's moving around. So now I know that I've got the rust ring internally broken.

So I'm going to see if I can get some pliers in here like that. This is where a small screwdriver comes in handy. So once I put my pliers in, and I can squeeze that, get a good grip on it. I hold that in, get a small screwdriver and I'm going to tip it up. I can follow it all the way around. There you go. You can take that lock ring right out.

When one is in this condition, I strongly recommend replacing it. That holds this bearing and this hub, and if this decides to break down, this is going to come apart on the wheel. So always replace the lock ring with the bearing.

So we set the press up and we press the bearing out of the knuckle. So here we have our part from 1aauto.com, we have our hub that comes with a new axle nut, locking nut, and our sealed bearing that's pressed in. Goes pressed into a knuckle. And here we have our old one that we just pressed out.

They're the same height, same diameter. It has the ABS ring, magnetic ring, and here's the old hub, new hub. You get new lug studs, and it comes with a new CV axle lock nut. If you need parts like this for your vehicle, or any other parts, go to 1aauto.com check us out.

Now I've got some emery cloth and I'm going to sand the inside, make sure there's no burrs in there, clear it out of any rust. It's going to make a smoother process of pressing in that bearing.

Now that I've have my, set my knuckle up on my press and I have the bearing, I'm pressing it into the knuckle. Then we're going to press the hub into the bearing.

You still have to go down about 1/8 of an inch. So I'm going to turn this around and ... You want to make sure that your item that you're pressing in the bearing is on the outer edge as much as possible, not on the inner part of that bearing. When you feel it tighten up, that's it, you're bottomed out. Press it too much, it'll destroy that new bearing.

Now I can put the lock ring in. Once the lock ring's in, I'll install my hub. There we go. Okay, so now I'm going to just take my hammer and a brass punch, just going to make sure it's seated in, just tap it lightly. Don't want to hit the magnet piece if possible.

Okay. Now our lock ring has set in place all the way around. The bearing is nice and smooth, still spins. Now we're going to press the hub in.

When pressing the hub now into the bearing, on a press, key note is this is the side the hub's coming on. This piece right here is, the bearing part is floating in there. If I just push this down, it'll separate the inner race from the outer race of that bearing.

So we're going to be coming in at this angle, so before I do that, I have to find something that will hold the center piece in place. This is where we want to be just mounted on the center piece and go from there.

If you were actually doing the press work and this was a bolt on backing plate, this is the time where you wanted to make sure you put that backing plate on before you press that hub in. Bearing still spins, no binding. That's good. Now I'm going to take it out and make sure it's pressed in all the way. That is right to the bottom.

Before I install my knuckle and I have the exposed CV shaft, with the splines, I'm going to add a little anti-seize compound on the splines, and that way in the future, for me or anyone else that's going to work on this, hopefully it comes out a lot easier. It's nice to be kind. You never know who's going to work on it.

So I'm going to line up my splines, and then I'm going to lift it up, attach it to the upper control arm. Now I can let that hang. So now I'm going to install my tie rod end. Just putting everything on hand-tight, then I'll come back around and tighten everything.

And we can re-route this ABS sensor. Not re-route it, we can re-attach it. So this piece went over here, 'cause I left the bolt there to remind me. This bracket has a nice guide little pin that goes into that extra hole. I'll line that up, start that bolt.

Now I'm going to mount the sensor on the actual knuckle. Put the guide right in the spot. And then I can put the bolt in, start it. Now I got my 12mm socket, and I'm going to tighten up the ABS sensor, on the hub.

I'm going to snug up the upper control arm, ball joint to the knuckle. 17mm socket, I'm just going to snug it because I have to get the torque wrench and torque specs, and we'll torque that down.

Now I'm going to snug the tie rod end onto the knuckle, 17mm socket again. This does have a cotter pin, so you're going to need anew cotter pin to install.

So what happens sometimes, the, especially anything that's splined, like a tie rod end it comes from a, or ball joint goes from narrow to fat, goes into that knuckle. What happens while you're tightening this, it's a lock nut, it starts to spin the stud, so you have to add pressure to it. I have a pry bar here I'm using. That'll allow you to tighten the nut down.

On the outer tie rod end, there is no torque specs for the nut, so just tighten it down as tight as it can go, make sure you pry on the tie rod end to stop the stud from spinning, really get it tight without breaking it, and then put in a new 1/8 cotter pin.

Now it's time to pull the CV shaft splines through the hub. You just gotta work it through. Now that I put this new CV shaft in, quick note here, just pay attention to the way that CV shaft fits in the hub.

If you have any side-to-side play with those little splines, it has a little click click noise, you have the wrong CV shaft, or the wrong hub. What will happen is, even though you tighten this, you'll go down the road and you'll hear a snap every time it goes into gear and it will actually be this hub moving back and forth, which is going to cause wear and tear and danger going down the road.

Now we're going to torque my upper control arm ball joint nut in the knuckle. This is a 17mm socket, and it is 39 foot pounds. Now we're ready to reinstall our lower rearward control arm ball joint stud into the knuckle. Now we're going to install the forward center ball joint control arm into the knuckle.

So now I'm going to install the lower strut wishbone mounting bolt into the center bushing. This is that one with the self-locking nut, 'cause it has that metal clip on it. So if the bolt is going to spin clockwise, I'm going to want this to go this way, and bottom out on the upper strut, wishbone part. This is a 15mm bolt, so we're going to snug that up before we torque it.

Now we're going to install the ball joints to the knuckle lock nuts. They come preloaded with thread lock. Install the rear one first. Don't get discouraged 'cause it's filled with thread lock, there it is, I got it.

Now we're going to install the front one. For the front one, I'm reusing the old nut, and I add some blue thread lock on it. This is a 24mm socket, or a 15/16 standard.

I've snugged down my two mounting bolts on the ball joint, and both of them are 147 foot pound torque. Now I'm torquing my wishbone lower strut mount to the control arm, 85 foot pounds, 15mm socket.

So then we're just going to tighten up the bracket for the ABS cable, the mounting bracket, and just snug it down. There's no torque for that.

This is where you would reinstall your front brakes. If your brakes are in great shape, reinstall the old brakes. In our case, the brakes pads and rotors were in bad shape, so we're going to do a brake job to this 2007 Mazda 6.

So now I'm going to install my new rotor on the hub, just like that 'cause I'm going to clean the surface. I'm going to take off the protective film that they put on it, so it doesn't rust when it's on the storage shelf. I have a catch basin down here, catch some of my parts cleaner. I'm just going to reverse it around.

So now with this process, before I put it on to clean it, I'm going to add a little anti-seize to my hub and my surface of my brake rotor. Nice light coat. I just want to avoid any aggravation in the future, of things seizing up. I just want to get it so that it stays from rusting.

I'm going to remount the rotor, lining up my mounting holes, which there's two, one there, one there. I'm going to reinstall those before I clean the rotor. Once again, I'm using a impact screwdriver, so once these bottomed out, you hammer them on, just a tap with the twist of this, and that assures that you have a nice surface mounting from the rotor to the hub. I'm just going to clean the protective surface on the outside.

Now I'm going to install my caliper bracket with the two mounting bolts. These are 17mm sockets, and we're just going to snug them down finger tight, and then I'm going to torque them to spec. So the mounting bracket bolts for the caliper bracket is 79 foot pounds.

So now I'm going to install my pads on my bracket. That was the inner, we're going to do it with the outer. Sometimes you might have to move the anti-rattle tin up and out of the way. Now you can put in your anti-rattle butterfly pins. There's one on the top, and one for the bottom.

So now I'm going to dismount my caliper that I had mounted up in this bungee cord. I can slide it right on. Mount these bolts on. These are 14mm sockets, put them on by hand. So now I'm going to tighten my caliper bracket bolts, and there's no torque for these, so I just like to snug them up. It's probably about equals to 18 to 20 foot pounds.

I'm going to check my brake fluid. Come up here to the master, take the cover off. The fluid level is just a smidge below. This is full and it's right there. So I'm going to top it off.

Before adding brake fluid, always check your manufacturer's cap, it should tell you what kind of fluid. This one says, DOT 3 only, so make sure you're putting DOT 3 brake fluid into this master. I'm going to install my cover, make sure there's no dirt, make sure the boot's down in position, lock it down.

Because I opened my bleeder screw to push the piston back, I'm just going to gravity bleed it after I've topped off my master. I'm going to open this bleeder screw, and just watch any air bubbles coming out, make sure I don't have any. Shouldn't have any, but you always need to check. Looks good to me.

I'm just going to tighten her up, spray it down and clean it and re-put the rubber boot that came with it back on to keep that bleeder screw clean. So now I'm just going to clean this, any brake fluid. Reapply my rubber boot cap.

I'm going to pump my brakes up, and that's going to assure that piston on that both calipers that I pushed back are going to be seated before I start my car up. It's nice and firm. It's right there.

Okay, so now I'm going to tighten my axle nut, and I do that by putting a pry bar in there against the ground. I don't have someone to step on the brake pedal. If you do, please use that at the same time.

So this axle nut is 202 foot pounds. It is crucial to torque hub nuts, and not use an air gun and rack on them. If you over-tighten that, you'll waste the bearing that you just pressed in. That's 202 foot pounds. Now I'm going to raise my vehicle up, or I can turn it right here. Now I'm going to peen over the lock nut, into the space. That's perfect.

So now I'm just going to remount my tire, put it up against the hub. Put my lug nuts on hand-tight. I'm just going to hand tighten them with my socket, then I'm going to lower it down on the ground, and I'm going to torque these to 83 foot pounds.

So now I'm going to torque my wheels at 83 foot pounds in a star pattern. That just helps make sure that the seat of the rim is seated correctly against the hub. Double check it real quick. There you go.Mike: Thanks for watching. Visit us at 1aauto.com for quality auto parts, fast and free shipping, and the best customer service in the industry.