How do you change a front wheel bearing in a cavalier and is stuck?

Answer 1

If you know it's stuck, then you must have already removed the knuckle from the strut, tie rod, and ball joint. You need to get the snap ring out from on top of the outer part of the bearing. Once you have that out, turn the knuckle over and set it on wooden blocks. Arrange the blocks so you can bang the bearing out and it has room to move. Get a large socket that fits the middle portion of the bearing and put it on the middle part of the bearing. Get a small block of wood, like a slice of 2x2 and put it on top of the socket to protect it from your sledge hammer. Take good aim and smack it really hard. You should see that the bearing moved. Clean up all the pieces of your small block of wood and position another one on top of the socket, and smack it again. Repeat until the bearing comes out of the knuckle. Then you will have your splined hub in your hand with one of the small pieces of the center of the bearing still pressed onto it. Get a chisel and tap it between the back face of the small bearing piece and the back face of the hub until the gap gets bigger, then tap the chisel into the gap until the point of the chisel almost touches the hub shaft, then get something bigger to move it farther. Eventually you will be able to tap it directly with a small hammer until it comes clear off. All this takes a couple hours, so have patience.

Alternative method: Spend a little money and buy a bearing separator, some pullers, and a shop press. Do the whole removal and reinstallation in about 10 minutes with no headaches. All of those tools combined cost about the same as having a shop do the job for you, so you might as well buy the tools so you will have them for next time.