I used one of those Harbor Freight Hub Tamers, or what ever they call it to R&R a wheel bearing. It didn't work well, just a bear of a job to remove old bearing and install new one. About 4 months later, the replacement bearing went bad. It was then, that I realized that the hub was bad. I wasn't going to buy a new hub, bearings, and seals, as it would take too long to get a new hub. Solution was to go to a wrecking yard, pulled a nice hub with fresh grease around the bearing. I installed that, pretty easily, and a year later, all is well. I sold the Hub Tamer for half price what I paid for it. IMHO, replacing the entire hub from a wrecking yard for $75 is the way to go in the future.

Rooster - that is a great idea IF you have a junkyard near you that has compatible models - we dont. I live in a very rural area - the "big city" closest to me is only 40,000 people and is an hour away... next largest is around 65,000 and is an hour and a half away...Have to go about 3 hours to get over 100,000...

 

All the junkyards close to me dont keep anything more than 10 years old, and there are no Pick-n-Pull types left around here anymore. Add to that there arent all that many Subarus in this area to start with... and of the Subies that are around here, most are of a much newer vintage (2000 or newer) than what I have - my choices become very limited. This is the reason I had to go 3 hours away to get a used tranny that has turned out to be junk (and they are fighting me about it)

 

There is a very small dealer an hour away, but they rarely have anything I need - they dont keep older parts in stock because there isnt much call for them - closest dealer of any size is going to be about 3 hours away - not practical.

 

All of this is why we usually have parts cars of our own (we had 3) - but those were recently cleaned out (needed cash and they had pretty well been picked over already) I might have been able to get a hub off of one of them, but they had all been sitting for quite some time, so chances are it wouldnt have lasted long anyway...as far as the tranny goes - none of them would have been compatible - the only AWD automatic parts car we had had a bad tranny in it (bad rebuild, wouldnt build pressure to change gears), of the other 2, one was FWD auto and the other was a manual that was in peices - nevermind that I cant drive a stick anymore with my foot problems - too painful...

 

I envy all you guys with the pick-n-pulls close by and cheap prices. that is nothing but a dream for me. Most of the time I like living where I do, but not so much in the "used parts" catagory...

Rooster - that is a great idea IF you have a junkyard near you that has compatible models - we dont. I live in a very rural area - the "big city" closest to me is only 40,000 people and is an hour away... next largest is around 65,000 and is an hour and a half away...Have to go about 3 hours to get over 100,000...

 

All the junkyards close to me dont keep anything more than 10 years old, and there are no Pick-n-Pull types left around here anymore. Add to that there arent all that many Subarus in this area to start with... and of the Subies that are around here, most are of a much newer vintage (2000 or newer) than what I have - my choices become very limited. This is the reason I had to go 3 hours away to get a used tranny that has turned out to be junk (and they are fighting me about it)

 

There is a very small dealer an hour away, but they rarely have anything I need - they dont keep older parts in stock because there isnt much call for them - closest dealer of any size is going to be about 3 hours away - not practical.

 

All of this is why we usually have parts cars of our own (we had 3) - but those were recently cleaned out (needed cash and they had pretty well been picked over already) I might have been able to get a hub off of one of them, but they had all been sitting for quite some time, so chances are it wouldnt have lasted long anyway...as far as the tranny goes - none of them would have been compatible - the only AWD automatic parts car we had had a bad tranny in it (bad rebuild, wouldnt build pressure to change gears), of the other 2, one was FWD auto and the other was a manual that was in peices - nevermind that I cant drive a stick anymore with my foot problems - too painful...

 

I envy all you guys with the pick-n-pulls close by and cheap prices. that is nothing but a dream for me. Most of the time I like living where I do, but not so much in the "used parts" catagory...

Yea, I understand your problem, you have made your point.

our local pic and pull charged me 700$ for a justy rear suspention. Arm 40 $ x2 axle 40 $ x2 diff 120 spring 50 x2 drum 30 x2 shock 30 x2 and so on. And rear diff assemblys were on sale for 39.99 last time i will ever set ft in the place.

 if I can get the bolts out for trailing arms and knukle bolt. This is #1 on my not favort jobs list

That lateral link bolt can bring a grown man to tears as it is often times be the most time consuming part of the job. 

I use a torque mutipler to do that bolt gives me 4x the force that a bar can put in 100 ft lbs get out 1000ft lbs it ether turns or breaks but i dont kill myself trying to undoo that bugger bolt

I got lucky on our '05 forester, the bolt would wiggle, I hit it with lotsa kroil and 5 minutes with the electric impact, eventually it spun and i could get it out.

 

Screwy arrangement for a 'serviceable' assembly.

Edited November 7, 201312 yr by CNY_Dave

I use a torque mutipler to do that bolt gives me 4x the force that a bar can put in 100 ft lbs get out 1000ft lbs it ether turns or breaks but i dont kill myself trying to undoo that bugger bolt

I need to get me one of those.  I have a crank pulley bolt on another car with specified torque of 306 ft.-lbs.

 

I've found that the bolt gets corrosion welded to the collars of the lateral link bushings -- No way to even turn the bolt without trashing the bushings. 

Edited November 11, 201312 yr by hohieu