2009 Mercury Mountaineer Front Passenger Side Wheel Bearing & Hub Assembly TRQ BHA53999

Hi, I'm Mike from 1AAuto. We've been selling auto parts for over 30 years! We're dedicated to delivering quality auto parts, expert customer service, and fast and free shipping, all backed by our 100% satisfaction guarantee. So visit us at 1AAuto.com, your trusted source for quality auto parts.

In this video, we're going to give you a general overview of how to replace a bolt-in style wheel bearing and hub assembly. While this vehicle may not be identical to yours, the steps and procedures will be very similar, if not the same, on a wide variety of aches and models. The only major differences will be the exact hardware used and their torque specifications. This information can be found on a wide variety of online resources to make sure your specific vehicle gets fixed right.

If you like this video, please click subscribe. We have a ton more general overview repairs, as well as specific installations for your make and model. If you need wheel bearings for your car, we have a wide selection available from 1AAuto.com. You can follow the link down in the description. Thanks for watching.

If your vehicle has a center cap or a full hubcap covering the lug nuts, hubcaps can be removed by grabbing and pulling, where center caps usually need a screwdriver or a small pry bar. Pop them off the wheel. Before removing your wheel and tire or jacking up the vehicle, loosen your axle nut or bolt in the center of the wheel with a breaker bar and the appropriate socket. Occasionally, the axle nut will have a cotter pin and lock cap in it. All you have to do is straighten out the tabs on the cotter pin, remove the cotter pin and the lock cap so you can access your axle nut.

When you go to put it back on, simply line up that lock cap so the holes line up with the hole in the axle. Install a new cotter pin through the opening, bend the legs over. Remove your lug nuts from the vehicle with the appropriate socket and a breaker bar. Make sure the tire is still on the ground at this point to prevent it from spinning when you go to remove the nuts. Just crack them loose one turn. This'll keep the wheel from falling off, but allow us to easily remove it once the pressure is off the car. If you have a wheel lock key, insert it into a lock lug if you have one. Loosen that up the same way.

Raise and support your vehicle. We're using a lift in the shop, but if you're doing this at home, it can easily be done with a jack and jack stands. If you're not sure on where to lift your vehicle, you can check a variety of online resources or the owner's manual in your vehicle if you still have one. Since we've already cracked our lug nuts loose, you should be able to just spin them off by hand once the vehicle's raised and supported. Make sure when removing the last lug you keep a hand on the wheel and tire, then remove them and set it off to the side.

Remove the two bolts on the back of the caliper. These are usually a regular hex bolt, but occasionally they're an Allen key with a little rubber cap you'll have to pop off to access them. You may need a screwdriver or a small pry bar to free the caliper from the pads. Then, using a zip tie, a bungee cord, or some mechanics wire, go ahead and secure the caliper up and out of the way so it doesn't get damaged while we finish our repair. Remove the pads. You may have to pop them out with a flat blade screwdriver if they're stuck in there. Remove the two bolts on the back of the spindle, securing the caliper bracket. Make sure that both are cracked loose before removing either one fully. Once the bolt is out, remove the caliper bracket from the spindle.

Some rotors may have a Phillips-head or torque screw securing the rotor to the hub. Remove that if necessary, and if your rotor is frozen to the hub from rust and corrosion, tap it on the face of the rotor. You can hit the outer edge if you're not reusing the rotor. If you are, tap between the studs, free up the rust, and remove the rotor from the hub. Finish removing your axle nut by hand or axle bolt on some vehicles. Once this has been removed, there's usually a small hole in the center here. We'll place a punch in that hole. Just tap the axle to release it from the splines inside of the hub. Normally there are a few bolts, in this case three, securing the hub onto the spindle. These bolts can be accessed from the back with either a socket and ratchet or a wrench if it's tight. Place a drain bucket or some cardboard or paper towels underneath the hub, and spray the backside of the bolts with some penetrating oil. Give that a little bit to soak in. Double check that your axle is released from the hub.

Using a chisel, we're going to wedge between the hub and the spindle. Once it starts coming out, we'll keep tapping that axle to make sure it's releasing from the splines. On this particular vehicle, we can now access the ABS sensor, which we'll have to remove before our hub can finish coming out. We could have removed this dust shield to access our ABS sensor more easily. However, the bolts are very corroded, and we didn't want to risk breaking anything, so we'll remove the bolt securing our sensor into the hub. This is usually just one bolt. Be very careful with these. If we're replacing our hub, it's not as big of a deal if this bolt breaks. We can always replace it with another one. However, we do want to be careful not to break our sensor while removing it. I find the easiest way to remove these sensors is to grab them with a pair of pliers, simply twist them back and forth while carefully pulling out. Once it's released, we'll hold it out of the way and remove our hub from the vehicle.

Reinstall the hub onto the axle. If you had an ABS sensor, reinstall that into the hub as well, along with the bolt. Tighten that bolt down. Now, I find it's easiest to realign the hub by sending the bolts through partway. Then, without fully installing the hub, you can just get a couple of threads started on each one by hand. Once you have them all started and lined up, you can tighten down all of your bolts.

Reinstall your axle nut or axle bolt, and get it on as tight as you can by hand.

Reinstall your rotor and rotor screw if necessary. If your vehicle doesn't have a rotor screw, to make it easier, press your rotor in flat, and using some washers or an old axle nut works perfect. Install a lug nut by hand as tight as you can into that axle nut. This'll keep the rotor upright while we reinstall the rest of our parts, making it that much easier. Reinstall the caliper bracket and the two bolts that secure it. Start both bolts by hand, then tighten them down with the appropriate socket and ratchet. Install your brake pads and apply a thin coat of grease to the backside of them. Release your caliper from whatever you used to secure it out of the way.

Using a large pair of groovelock pliers, carefully compress each piston one side at a time, going nice and slow so you don't push the other piston out in the process. You may have to go back and forth a couple of times if you have dual piston calipers like these. Once it's fully compressed, slide it back over the pads, push the pins in to allow the caliper back into place, reinstall your hardware. Once they're in by hand, go ahead and tighten them down with the appropriate socket and ratchet.

If you've used the axle nut and lug nut trick to secure your rotor, go ahead and remove that now.

Reinstall your wheel and tire. Reinstall your lug nuts as tight as you can by hand. Now you're all set to lower your vehicle. Tighten your lug nuts and then torque them to spec in a cross pattern. If you don't know what this torque spec is, you may be able to find it in your owner's manual or in a variety of online resources.

Once you've got your wheel and tire back on the ground and all your lug nuts are tight, torque your axle nut, which you can use the same resources to locate. Once you're done, simply pop on your center cap or hubcap. Make sure you pump your brakes until you get a nice firm pedal back to allow that compressed caliper to seat before moving the vehicle.

Thanks for watching. Visit us at 1AAuto.com for quality auto parts, fast and free shipping, and the best customer service in the industry.

Hi, I'm Mike from 1AAuto. We've been selling auto parts for over 30 years! We're dedicated to delivering quality auto parts, expert customer service, and fast and free shipping, all backed by our 100% satisfaction guarantee. We've created thousands of videos to help you install our parts with confidence. That saves you time and money, so visit us at 1AAuto.com, your trusted source for quality auto parts.

Use a small flat blade screwdriver and pry your center cap off, and then just work your way around. Use a 32 millimeter socket and a nice big breaker bar, and you want to move hub nut. Now with your vehicle still on the ground, just loosen your five lug nuts with either your tire iron or a 19 millimeter deep socket. Raise and support your vehicle. You'll use jack and jack stands. We do have available vehicle lift. Take your lug nuts off the rest of the way and remove your wheel and tire.

Make sure your axle is free, and this one just pushes nice and easy. You don't want to hit the axle a lot with a hammer because you can mess up your CV joints. A lot of times if it is just stuck, one good hit with a hammer will break it free, and then you can push it on. Turn your wheels, and just get access to the back side. You'll want to remove the bolts that hold your caliper in place. These bolts are 17 millimeter. You want to use a good size ratchet with some leverage. Use a large screwdriver. You just want to pry the piston out a little bit. This will help you remove the caliper. The more you pry this out, the more it sets here and back in. We'll take this, and we will secure it with a bungee, so it doesn't fall down and press our lines.

Give it a little bit center bracket, which is the bolt of eight millimeter. Pick that up there. Pull this from this clip here, and also hold firmly on that cliff. Pull that up there. The ABS sensor connects right in the hood, right underneath the back of the air cleaner box right here. You probably can't see it very well, but there's just little tab. Push it on the tab and disconnect. Once you disconnect it, just pull it through. Pull the lead out and down and free. Now remove these two 21 millimeter bolts that hold the caliper bracket onto the steering knuckle.

Again, you want a good size bar for some leverage. Once all the bolts are out, your caliber bracket and shoes come out. You can also take the brake pads out of here before you reassemble. If need be, you can hit the rotor from the front just to break it loose. Because you want to be careful if you're going to hit it from the back, you don't want to put any dents or dings in it and make it unusable.

It's a good idea to consider a new set of brakes from 1AAuto.com at this point as well. Three 15-millimeter bolts hold the hub in from the back, just see through here. There's another one on the front, and then we're going to use a 3/8” ratchet and 15 millimeter socket and extension to break those free. Just turn your wheels, so you can get to that front bolt. That last bolt coming out. Now for some reason, our hub is coming out easily. I'm going to pull your harness from here. Many times, you'll have to use a hammer. Hit it from the backside where it's clear here, and bring it out. We'll use some brake parts cleaner and really clean up the hub or the steering knuckle before I call the new one.

We have the original hub here on the right and our new hub from 1AAuto.com. They're all exactly the same. The ABS sensor goes in the same. All the mounting points are exactly the same, and the connector is the same. The harness has all the same grommets and moldings to mount the same way. We're going to put the new on. We're just going to put a thin layer of grease, even though you'll probably never have to replace it again. If you do, it'll come apart.

Put it on with the ABS sensor kind of towards the back top. Going to put it on the axle. Push it in, and we'll start one of the bolts in. We'll place a little thread lock on the bolts before we put them in. Now we'll use our socket and ratchet, and tighten these up evenly. You don't want to tighten one all the way. And then the other ones, bring that one in a little bit. Go to the top one, and just keep working your way around. Torque these bolts to 90 foot-pounds. Just be careful that you don't damage your CV boots. Now attach our ABS sensor. Put the armor into that clip.

This comes up here, and that touches on here. The little ear should go in there, and then the bolt goes through. Keep going up, and that clips in there. Ours has a new clip for her, so we'll pull that out and put the new clip in.I'm pointing it up through here. Find your sensor. Pull it up through, and feed it down between the AC hoses and through. Make sure it's not touching your engine, and reconnect it. Brake rotor from sticking to it too much in case you need to get the part again. Okay again, great time to consider new brakes from 1A Auto. If you're putting your old brakes on, make sure your wire brush is trying to clean that out a little bit, so it goes on nice and easy over the hub. Then we'll put a lug nut on just to hold things in place. Great to install new brakes and slides. If you're not, at least clean up the slides with a brass brush before installing the caliper bracket.

Go ahead and install the bracket. Put some intakes. Put some thread locker on the bolts. Move them in and start them. Then we're going to tighten these up and torque them to a 122 foot-pounds. Now put some caliper brake grease on the slides. Carefully not to get it onto rotor itself, inside and out. Great time for new pads from 1A Auto. If you're installing your old ones, make sure you grease the contact points. Then the one with the two circles will be your inner pad, and the pad that has kind of the M shape on it is your outer pad. Make sure that your slide pins are nice and free. If they're not, you can pull them all the way out. Clean them and grease them before you put it back together.

Take our bungee cord off, carefully lower the caliper down. If you were installing new brakes, you need to press your pistons back into the caliper. Use a C-clamp and an old pad, and press them into the caliper piston to reset it. We're reinstalling our old pads, so just put it down, or both in. These are designed so that there's a flat spot on the slide. That slides right in there and holds it in place while you tighten it. Make sure the slide is nice and flush against the caliper. You don't want it to look like that. You want it to look like that, and torque the bolts that go into the caliper to 53 foot-pounds.

Remove your lug nuts. Start your 32-millimeter nut on. You can tighten it preliminary. Best to have a new one, but you can reuse your old one.

Put your wheel and tire back in place, and start on your lug nuts, and tighten them preliminary. We'll tighten our lug nuts to a 100 foot-pounds using a star pattern, and we'll tighten our center nut to 184 foot pounds, and replace the center cap.

Thanks for watching. Visit us at 1AAuto.com for quality auto parts, fast and free shipping, and the best customer service in the industry.