rear wheel bearings, to replace or not?

[rbcsaver]

I have an 84 Carrera with 128K miles. New to me in 1995. As far as I know, the rear bearings are original. I have an appointment Monday to re-level (left side is 1" higher than right side) the car and do an alignment . I am finishing up the front ball joints, solving the Pagid causing pseudo-warped rotor syndrome and install of new front bearings.

A few years ago I bought new rear bearings but never had them installed. I have asked the dealer for an install cost ( but he not gotten back to me the Sat before my Monday appointment). How much has this job cost to other list members iun the past? Should I do this just because the car has 128K miles? I do not have any indication that the existing bearings are making noise or starting to fail. What is the expected life of a wheel bearing. I do not currently have a press, though I do have access. Could I do this myself, say next winter? I have read some of the posts by those who have done this with Home Depot support. Should I save my money and just wait for a failure of the existing ones?
regards,
Steve

[on-ramp]

Steve,

My 83SC has 153,000 miles on it and i believe i have the original wheel bearings.

you should be fine for a while... i would wait until you start to hear the symptoms.
just drive and dont worry about it.

[Allenk]

I had mine replaced while going through my rear suspension and it cost me $30 to have them pressed. Of course I did all the grunt work but it was worth it. Note, the existing bearings seemed ok but while it was apart I figured wy not.

[Schrup]

Steve, if your not doing track events, I would wait. Although when you do do it you'll need to get the rear aligned again. I choose to let JWW do mine cause he already had my car & after doing the front myself , I didn't care to chance messing up my banana arms. When you do do them I would check the date stamped on the side of you CVjoints & if they are the originals, I would replace them, as their life is 100k. Heck, while your in there you may as well replace your bushings, revalve/replace your shocks & struts, & upgrade your torsion & sway bars, all good DIY jobs. I would just take the swing arm to a machine shop to have the new races switched out. Just my two cents.

[rbcsaver]

Schrup:
I do some DEs and AXs. The rear shocks (Green "Sport" Bilsteins) are about 8 years old. T-bars are from a 930. I can't remember whether 26 or 28mm, rear 930 sway bar and stock bushings done last summer. I bought the parts to rebuld the CV joints/boots but haven't done that yet..
regards

[Cerbin]

If your going to replace them yourself, I would also recommend that you have a maching shop remove the races (mostly on the rear). I was working on replacing my rear bearings this week and still cannot get the races out. (They are made out the hardest metal in the world and virtually fused to the swingarm and hub)

Good luck!

Patrick O

[rbcsaver]

Cerbi,
From my research, I assume that your trailing (swing, bananna) arms are steel so that rust, as opposed to the ever so (not) pleasant bi-metal electro-fusion, has occurred. Certainly, you are much more experienced at this process than I. Did you try applying liquid wrench or similar products, heat and using a slap hammer taht others have had success with? I am current finishing up the ball joints and I know how tough that has been to get 20 year old nuts and pins off.
Best of luck!
regards,
Steve