Installing the new bearing was going pretty smooth until it was about 3/4 way in it became hard to continue in and had to pull out the 4 foot pipe to put on the breaker bar again and it was just squeaking loud as we cranked it in. So we loosened up the bearing press plates and Dad sprayed some WD40 in the back side of the bearing around the edges and then went back to cranking it in. The bearing did get seated all the way in the knuckle and C-clip installed. We are using one of those Harbor Freight wheel bearing adapter press kits.
Then we pressed in the hub, which looked like it was pressed in all the way judging from the front but after removing the press plates, the end of the hub shaft did not make it all the way to the end of the bearing on the backside, looked like 1/4 or so shy. At that point I noticed there was some play in the bearing, I could wiggle the hub and when pulling toward me the bearing looked like it could slide in and out just maybe 1/8". When rotate the hub it looks like the whole bearing is rotating on the outer race (I think), the inner race with hub only looks like it's rotating if I put a little pressure down on it. Thought after tightening the axle nut down on it everything would pull itself together in the right place. Took it out for quick spin and it drove much better, sounded fine until a couple turns in there were lots of clunking and it sounded worse than the old bearing. FYI This drive was on our farm land, 0 people or objects around if things went bad.
1) When pressing the hub in I just used one of the plates that covered the opening on the backside of the knuckle which put the pressure on the knuckle and not the inner race of the bearing and I *think* as the hub pressed in it PUSHED OUT the backside split of the inner race and/or deformed the back shield. I think that's where the wiggle and side to side play came from, Is that possible?
2) I might be crazy in thinking rotating the hub the outer race was turning, but thought it could that be from use using the WD40? It definitely wasn't easy to get that new bearing seated so the outer race had a good tight fit. Unless it just appeared to me as the whole bearing assembly rotating because I think I broke it all apart from #1.
3) It took 20 minutes with a 600ftlb impact wrench to get off the axle nut, it would take 30 seconds or so just to make 1 full revolution of the nut. Is that unusual? Reinstalling later was the same, the threads looked fine but it took forever to get that thing off/on and that's with an impact gun, didn't seem right.
We haven't gotten back to pull it apart again, won't be able to until next weekend. I have another bearing, but trying to figure out all the places we went wrong before trying again. Any thoughts?