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Just a little guide for one method of removing the inner sleeve of a wheel bearing from a rear spindle(Disc brakes only?)
Wow, that was a mouthful.

For starters, this is what the bearing/hub assembly should look like upon removal:
The inner sleeve of the bearing is raised in this instance, as this one came apart upon removal. They are normally flush.


This is what I saw upon removal of my hub assembly over the weekend: Note the missing sleeve.


I had no access to a camera until after replacing the hub entirely, so I will not be able to show the sleeve as it was stuck on the spindle. This is the damaged inner sleeve: Note the smooth edge on the top side of the image, the lower edge will be explained later.


My options were limited by the fact that the bearing surface is very smooth, not to mention lubricated. There was not a sufficient gap between the sleeve and the spindle to pry it free. My choice in this instance was a claw style pulling tool: I rented this from Autozone for ~$30 USD, as I won't have need of it for a long time hopefully. They're pretty handy, when you do need them, completely useless when you don't.


The sleeve itself had a slight lip on it, not quite deep enough for the puller to grab onto. My solution was to grind notches into the sleeve itself, creating a seat for the jaws of the puller: The seat does not need to be particularly deep, but it does need to be wide enough to properly receive the jaws, and the lip that the jaws pull against must be as straight as possible.


There are definitely other methods for removing these, but I figured I would post this as one option. I estimate the time I spent grinding and fitting the puller jaws at around 10 minutes. The slow part is driving to and from the store to rent the tool.

"proper" way is to put the hub in a vice and hit the lip of the race with a punch alternating sides and "walk" it out. im not sure for our cars though, as the rear bearings are meant to be sold as 1 piece with the hub. but there is "supposed" to be enough surface area to get a punch on it.

either way, good work getting it out. they can be a huge pain in the a-- sometimes and there is nothing wrong with thinking outside of the box.

I think you misunderstood my post

I was not attempting to remove the bearing from the hub, but while removing the hub from the spindle, the piece I ground slots into came out of the hub itself, staying on the spindle. It was a PITA, I couldn't get a damn thing to grip it, and there was absolutely zero chance of prying it off, I couldn't even get a chisel or knife behind it.

Normally you don't replace bearings on these hubs, just get new hub. I know I just had to replace one on my moms 05 Legacy GT. I got Timken brand off of ebay for $80-same part at the parts store is $135+ tax

I replaced the hub assembly, bearing and all. The entire point of this post was that the OLD bearing came apart when I removed the entire assembly. The portion that remained on the spindle was ridiculously stuck, and this was the method I chose to remove it.

Ive ran into similar situation today on cousins 92 civic. I used cut off wheel/chisel to get old bearing off of the spindle.


I've carefully ground remainder of the bearing to where I could chisel it off and then took it off. It actually looked like part of the spindle and I had to double check at the parts store/online to make sure I had the right part.

Thanks, MrMazda. I hope I never need to do it, but it's good to know.

thanks for the info i think i need to replace my rear ones i think its the rims that reduces their life
i bought a 5" claw puller from schucks in washington for 12 bucks about 6 months ago

No problem guys, I was quite frustrated when I saw that the bearing came apart upon removal. Thankfully it didn't take too much to get it off.

it happens all the time... it can be a pita... and btw the "sleave" you speak of is called a "race"

Oh yeah, bearing race! My bad! ;D

yeah, when Tavis did mine he just pounded on it with a hammer and it slowly slid down

I had some pictures when I did a job on cousins civic....
you can see where bearing race is stuck on the spindle

Old bearing and new bearing comparison. I simply took my 3" grinder and ground till it started separating from spindle and it came off.