I’m finally back to the steering knuckle, or swivel bearing in BMW speak, rebuild. In truth tho, I was in a hurry and knocked it back together a week ago, but put the dust shield on backwards. Idiotic mistake, especially because I knew which way it goes on because I took pictures, but I was in a hurry. So down to the steering shop I went where they destroyed the bearing to get it all apart again. No way around it though. The back shoulder in the knuckle that the bearing presses up to precludes any ability to press either the hub or the bearing out cleanly.
Round two with a new bearing went down this am. The last time I struggled to pull the bearing in with my monster, and cheap, eBay bearing press set so this time I froze the bearing all night and put the knuckle in the oven for a few hours at 150 degrees. A much easier time was had. I fact I didn’t bother with the press, but rather hammered it in with the 90mm cup and a BFH. Whereas the first time took over an hour, and most of that spent on the final 10mm, this time I spent about 10 min total banging the bearing home. I did remember to spread a thin layer of loctite 638 over 50% of the knuckle bore.
On my first attempt the wheel hub drew in easily with my bearing puller. No so much this time because it kept starting at an angle, no matter how many times I tried. My solution was to use a large wood clamp to put max pressure on the “high” side, then continue to pull with the bearing kit. It righted itself and then pulled in easily.
The gotchas on this job are the fact that you can’t fix anything done incorrectly once the wheel hub is in, so take your time getting the dust shield and brake shield on correctly.
Finally I popped the new tension strut ball joint (“guide joint” in BMW speak) into the knuckle and used the new hex bolts torqued to 60NM, per TIS. I hit the guide joint with some anti-seize where it goes into the knuckle, and used blue loctite on the bolts. I also witness marked them so I can make sure they aren’t moving. They should be much easier to remove so I don’t have to go through this BS again.
