It's actually silly easy I keep to aluminum Hubs loaded at the ready with bearings 45 min a side slap on at home . Have at it videos in abundance. Good luck
Not hard but I would get new axle nuts. The factory nuts are staked and if you can’t get them un staked you can just take them off with a impact gun and replace them. Mine came right off but you may need to rent a something to pull the wheel bearing off the cv axle if you live in a rust area.
They are not hard. You only have to take the brake caliper off. Remove the axel nut before removing the wheel. Easier, and they you can push the axel in to get to the 4 bolts for the hub. No need to remove the strut or ball joint. Soak the area where the hub meets the spindal. Then take a big hammer and punch and hit the hub where the bolts go through a few time, clock wise, then counter clock wise. This will free up the rust. It will take some time, so be patient. Then you can use a chisel to get behind the hub. A few hits at a time opposite sides. Once it's semi freed, you might be able to hit the part the wheels bolt to, again opposite ends and it will pop off. So will the dust shield. Use a wired brush, and/or sand paper to clean up the spindal, and put some anti-seize on it where the hub goes. You can use grease if you don't have the anit-seize. Then bold it all back together. Just becarful you don't damage the axel boot!
It's extremely easy - UNLESS the hub unit is corroded to the knuckle. If it is, how easy it is will vary by how bad the corrosion is. It can vary from a few taps to pop it off to 10lb slide hammer, to using a GOOD air hammer to start it rotating at the base on axis to break the corrosion.
If you do it that way, replacing the axle is also a good idea. If the spindle threads take damage, bets are off as to how well the next nut will hold after reassembly. Some repair techniques can create known risks and still cause "no problem" much of the time, leading people to report having used the techniques with "no problem." But when a warning about the technique makes it into the manual, generally it has caused somebody a problem.
I've done a dozen or so the way I described. Without a problem. Sometimes it takes longer. When I had an air hammer, I used it, it makes it faster, and easier. But most people don't have an air hammer and/or a compressor. It's a TIGHT fit, but if you rotate it so the flat part of the hub is covering the hole on the spindle, you can take two bolts and tighten them from behind to press on the hub. Though it is a TIGHT fit. After tightening them firmly, smack the hub with the hammer, then tight the bolts again. It will shock/vibrate the hub out.
One of my favorite vids is of Eric O from South Main Auto tackling the front bearing on a 2012. His shop is in Avoca, NY. Here, he's using "Big Nasty," which is the Astro Tools clone of the Chicago Pneumatic 5x air gun/rivet hammer - so more powerful than even Snap On's PH3050. There's multiple companies that market the same type of clone all the way up to CP's 9x guns. I have a 9x (actual old CP) and a 7x clone (Michigan Pneumatic) myself.
He spend too much time going "round". After a few times, he should have turned it more so he could get to the "hole" then get behind it. And spray behind the shield... but it worked. I don't like the grinding bit though. A regular wired wheel would have been all he needed. I also put anti-sieze on the axel. And on the rotor where it goes on the hub. It sure makes it easier the next time. I have that same torque wrench!
I would rate him as one of the best on YT. He is VERY adept at diagnostics. Eric, along with ScannerDanner, DiagnoseDan, and a few others are extremely good at what they do, but more importantly at explaining the how and why of what they do when it comes to diagnostics and repairs. The only thing is being general shops, their vids cover a lot of non-Toyota ground. ToyotaMaintenance is a channel that is a specialty shop so pretty much only has Toyota repairs (though not too many Prius specific). WeberAuto is an instructor at some kind of tech school, and he takes DEEP dives into various Prius things like how the inverter works, etc. - i mean DEEP. Like WAY more than even a dealer tech would get in to.
Generally if I'm on hub bearings it's time to very closely be looking at drive axles struts lower ball joint and all that because it's cheap stuff and might as well renew the whole side while you're there while I'm there I'm going to flip around and do the other whole side too so both sides on the front are pretty much renewed I may not have to replace the end links on the sway bar at that time but they'll get looked at.
Finished both sides at front now. My god - that was a lot of hard work to get the bearing set off the car! Totally corroded and very hard to get off car. New bearing set came with nuts and studs. So I saved some money, but I think next time I will leave this task with a shop.
For me it's easier to have two of the aluminum hubs already loaded with bearings and lower ball joints and thenassemble that to the car and maybe new struts if that's what's happening and put all that back together. with the aluminum hub assembly out of the car it's much easier to knock the bearing out than with it on the car and now you have another set of aluminum arms that you can load up for the next time the next car. something they fit a myriad of years of the Prius and we have a few so it's just easier to have an extra set out ready to go. and makes the disassembly and assembly go much quicker it was like 45 minutes aside or so to replace preloaded hubs and that's including the lower ball joint
What methode did you use to get them off? And if you wire brushed the spindle and put anti-seize or grease on the mating surfaces, It will be easy to remove them next time.
Just wanted to point to this recent vid by Eric O because I mentioned his channel. In this case, it's a GM, but diagnostics is diagnostics. Here, the customer first took her suv to the DEALER, who diagnosed it with a $4K steering repair and had it for 3 weeks. Eric found the REAL problem and cost less than $20 in parts. He had her out in a few hours. The owner of the suv also posted (which seems to be rare) about how she is 'in touch' with the dealer and are in 'discussions.' Note - I am in no way affiliated with South Main Auto (I don't even live in NY) - just enjoy his vids immensely. If I lived in his area, and needed a shop to perform a service, he would be the only one I would take my stuff to. There's even an episode where someone had their car towed to his shop from hundreds of miles away because the shops around him/her just couldn't fix the problem.
Yep. You stand a decent chance of galling up the end of the axle shaft if you just blast the nut off with impact. I took a tapered punch that's as wide as the angled lock slot on the axle. Then I ground the tip at 45° or so (grinder or dremel). The flat bit of the punch rests on the flat lock slot. As I hit the punch, the the rounded part of the tip drives the staked section of the nut out. Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
Generally if I'm blasting that off I'm putting in a whole new axle shaft with new boots new joints and what in the whole shebang it's only like $66 even if I have it done locally at the CV drive axle place up the road from LKQ it's like about $86 an axle handed to me at the counter and then I put that whole thing on the car.
