How much(any) play in front wheel bearings?
How much disassembly required to replace if needed?
Nev acc the only place to buy?
Grease zerk on steering gear?
There’s one bearing per side, and I believe two seals. There should be little to no play. To replace you will need to remove the steering knuckle and have the bearing pressed in/out. I had to replace one on my elxd last spring and tried to fine a replacement but even the local bearing shop couldn’t match it. I think I’ve got the bearing number floating around somewhere, I’ll have to take a look. I believe the A arms, knuckles and brakes are off an arctic cat atv.
What kind of play do you have? The way your tire is attached is the hub sides into the bearing from the outside and the cv shaft slides into the hub and thr castle nut holds the hub on. The bearing shouldn’t have play but hub sleeve/cv shaft my have some?
I can’t tell where the play is. Maybe 1/4" at top of tire . Clunk clunk when rocking the wheel.
It seem limited by brake pads as much as anything. Don’t want to dig into it until parts are here.
Your 08/should have TWO wheel bearings per wheel. Inboard and out board. Usually the outboard bearing suffers most wear. Best practices state replace both bearings, races and lubricants at same time. Not hard, but an involved process. Not too expensive for a qualified shop to do. Bearings should be easily matched at any good bearing shop. Search on this forum for exact part numbers if required. Polaris dealers should have most parts in stock if you know numbers. Their search system still lacks for GEM cars. It helps greatly to have part numbers when ordering. I still have og part numbers for the early cars but not later models.
I don’t recall how the wheels went on when I did my brake swap( disc for drums ) but I believe they aren’t too different from cars/trucks. ie bearings inboard and outboard. IIRC I removed all the grease on mine, cleaned the bearings, blew them dry and regreased. To replace, you usually need a long solid rod which allows you to catch the lip of the race on the opposite side and hit the rod with a hammer. hit it once, move 90 degrees along the race, hit once, move again. around and around until the race has been knocked out. Flip the hub over and do the same to the other side. Clean the race seats well.
I usually use a large socket to install the race. you just don’t want to slip and scratch the bearing surface. You’ll know when it has been fully seated. The hammer will bounce a bit and the sound tells you too.
As for tightening the bearings, my mechanism is to seat it well while rotating the wheel and stop when you feel friction. The wheel rotation should slow or stop at that point too. I then back off no more than 1/4 turn. Put the crown holder on and slip a cotter pin in. Then rotate the wheel/hub and it should rotate freely. To be certain, put the tire/wheel on with just a couple of lug nuts and you should just hardly feel any movmement pushing in at the bottom while pulling at the top.
If you see any blueing of the bearings, you’ll want to replace them.
These aren’t tapered bearings that can be tightened to adjust. I believe it’s one wide sealed bearing.
If it was the tapered bearing type, I could have turned the nut 1/4 turn.
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Unless the el uses a different bearing than the elxd it requires 1 bearing. Theses are spherical bearings that are designed to handle lateral forces so you don’t need 2 like with tapered roller bearings. I’ll get you the part number so you can buy it online or from an atv dealer, it’s considerably cheaper than getting it from NEV.
The bearing number is dac305530/25,2rs. I believe this is off of a 2002 arctic cat 500 4x4 atv, if we someone can do some more research and find out for sure then we should be able to get all of the suspension/ steering parts for our gems from aftermarket instead of Polaris or not being able to at all.
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Wow, all that weight and lateral forces on the one bearing! Probably going to want to keep a few handy for replacement. After watching the video, it’s a big … bearing! This guy’s replacing all for wheel bearings on the ATV:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jPk65CCksg
it’s on a Arctic Cat 650 so it might not be the same as the 500.
2012 E2, just discovered the front hub bearings have excessive play-vibration with the front tires off the ground. Time to replace all the front bearings, seals, and boots (and?). I can’t find the “New Topic” button to post, hence this old post reply. I can pull the knuckles, but can use advice and tips about how to most simply do this R-n-R. I’m wondering what it’ll take to pull the outboard end of the half-shaft out of the hub, too. Bearing part numbers/seal numbers too would be useful. I’ve got the factory pdf manual, it’s not too helpful. PS: Thanks to all who helped with my charger replacement with advice. Got it fixed!
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