I wanted to shim the rear hubs on my wife's car in order to fix the rear misalignment issue that we all know and love. I was stopped in my tracks because the rear hub appears to be rusted solid onto the axle. I loosened all four bolts and no amount of pulling and/or whacking would get it to budge. Is it supposed to be this difficult, or am I missing something? This is a '07 with over 100k on the clock, so I expected some resistance. But this thing is really stuck. In the end I just torqued everything back down and sprayed some PB around the flange in hopes that it will sink in over the next week. Any bright ideas?
My car only had about 7 or 8k miles when I shimmed the rear hub. My recollection is that the hub separated very easily after loosening the bolts. I would expect that you have a fair amount of rust holding your hub on. I think the PB blaster and time is the best way to go. If you can, I would try to give a couple of extra squirts over the next week.
Be careful with heat - there is an ABS sensor built into the rear hub. Just to be clear, you are trying to shim between the backing plate and the axle beam, but you need to remove the bolts holding the hub (and backing plate) to the axle beam.
If the rear mis-alignment isn't too bad, maybe you would do well to leave well-enough alone. If you are determined to fix that, how about loosening the four hub bolts several turns, then mount the tire/wheel back on the hub and gently lower the car so that the tire will exert force on the hub, pushing it off. That would apply ~750 lb of force on the hub.
A while back, Galaxee said that yeah, the rear hub tends to rust on. Their recommendation was to use a 2x4 resting across the inside of the hub and whack the crap out of it with a small mallet. Of course, the 2x4 is to give equal pressure on two points of the hub as well as to keep you from whacking on the hub itself. I rotate my own tires and have had this problem previously.
A very good idea, but you must ensure that the car is securely supported since you will be under it and would not want the car to fall on you while you are whacking away. I have a small sledgehammer which has proven invaluable for suspension work. That provides much more force than a hammer which has a much smaller head.
Leaving it alone did cross my mind (which led to this pause for consideration) but the poor tire wear has become bad enough that I'd like to fix it unless it comes down to an uncomfortable level of risk or expense. We don't plan to get rid of the car any time soon. Sounds like more persuasion is the next step up. The best I had access to today was a 16oz claw hammer.
After letting the PB Blaster soak in, I would drive the car in a parking lot in short turns in both directions with the axle nuts loosened a turn . I've had the hubs 'rusted on' , I think its the galvanic action between the two metals. Cancel this. Edit ------- use two small bolts that screw into the hub 8 mm by 1.25 . See this thread http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-...leshooting/62006-rear-brake-clean-adjust.html The front disc's also have these same thread holes.
Good point. It should have occurred to me that Galaxee usually worked with a car up on a lift in a professional garage.
I had the same rusted-on wheel problem a couple of years ago on my '06 at ~70K miles -- on the rear wheels only. No amount of twisting, hitting or prying would separate the rear wheels from the hub. I put the wheels back on but left the lug nuts loose by a couple of turns and then gently backed the car down the driveway a few feet and into the gutter. The drop between the driveway and gutter was about an inch. Then I pulled back in, jacked the car up, and the wheels had been broken free! I cleaned up the rust with a wire brush and then put a very thin coat of grease on the contact areas inside the wheel. Since then, I haven't had any unusual troubles removing the wheels. Good luck!
I managed to get the hubs freed and shimmed. Letting the penetrant sink in for a week and upgrading to a 3lb drilling hammer (with a block of wood) got the job done.
I just had the same problem with my 2010 and I thought I should share my solution. No amount of beating or prying would remove the thing. And I drive on it with the bolts loose and that didn't do a thing. Then I found I could put a socket extension on top of the hub going through the holes you use to remove the hub bolts. Then I put on the rotor and the lug nuts and tightened them until it came out. Here is a picture: You can see how much I was beating on this already. The only problem with this picture is that I still needed to remove the bolts. Even after all of this it took a lot of torque and I only just got the top up a couple mm. That was enough to pound in a prybar and pry it out the rest of the way.
