After much effort getting various rusted/seized parts off, I was finally able to replace the front right wheel bearing on a 2010 Rio LX. But I had no such luck with the front left bearing for some reason.
I tried everything I could think of with the tools I had or could borrow, including tons of Liquid Wrench penetrating oil on both the inner and outer part of the hub/knuckle, a torch on the outside of the hub, slide hammer, hub puller with pushing pin using a 300 ft-lb impact wrench, lots of blows from a 2.5lb sledgehammer on basically everything, including the shaft end (which mushroomed it a bit until I screwed on a disposable axle nut to pound on instead), etc. But it wouldn't come out.
So I put everything back together and have been driving the car with one new and one old bearing for a few weeks. I read somewhere that doing this might help loosen the shaft from the hub splines. I'm about to give it another try.
I was wondering though whether I can just leave the car on the ground, no jacks, not disassembling anything, just loosening the axle nut and lining its outside surface with the end of the CV shaft, and try to loosen the axle with just a sledgehammer. There should still be an inch or so of play on the CV shaft, right?
Would that work, or would it somehow prevent the shaft from budging, even just enough so that I can then raise the car, remove the wheel, rotor and caliper, disconnect the knuckle from the outer tie rod, lower control arm and strut, and completely remove the shaft from the hub?
And even if this did work, could it somehow damage some part that didn't occur to me? I just want to avoid the trouble of disassembling everything only to find that the shaft is still seized and I have to take it to a shop to have it removed.
I tried everything I could think of with the tools I had or could borrow, including tons of Liquid Wrench penetrating oil on both the inner and outer part of the hub/knuckle, a torch on the outside of the hub, slide hammer, hub puller with pushing pin using a 300 ft-lb impact wrench, lots of blows from a 2.5lb sledgehammer on basically everything, including the shaft end (which mushroomed it a bit until I screwed on a disposable axle nut to pound on instead), etc. But it wouldn't come out.
So I put everything back together and have been driving the car with one new and one old bearing for a few weeks. I read somewhere that doing this might help loosen the shaft from the hub splines. I'm about to give it another try.
I was wondering though whether I can just leave the car on the ground, no jacks, not disassembling anything, just loosening the axle nut and lining its outside surface with the end of the CV shaft, and try to loosen the axle with just a sledgehammer. There should still be an inch or so of play on the CV shaft, right?
Would that work, or would it somehow prevent the shaft from budging, even just enough so that I can then raise the car, remove the wheel, rotor and caliper, disconnect the knuckle from the outer tie rod, lower control arm and strut, and completely remove the shaft from the hub?
And even if this did work, could it somehow damage some part that didn't occur to me? I just want to avoid the trouble of disassembling everything only to find that the shaft is still seized and I have to take it to a shop to have it removed.
