How To Replace Front Wheel HubBearing 1999-2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee PART 1

Brought to you by 1AAuto.com, your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the internet. Hi, I'm Mike Green. I'm one of the owners of 1A Auto. I want to help you save time and money repairing and maintaining your vehicle. I'm going to use my 20 plus years experience restoring and repairing cars and trucks like this to show you the correct way to install parts from 1AAuto.com. The right parts installed correctly, that's going to save you time and money. Thank you, and enjoy the video.

This is video one in a two-part series, removing and replacing a hub on '99 to '04 Jeep Grand Cherokee. In this video, we basically go through the removal. Tools you'll need are jack and jack stands, 3/4", 11/16" and 1-7/16" socket. That latter socket is one that's not in most tool boxes. Pipe or breaker bar for leverage because some of these bolts are tight, a hammer or a sledge hammer, depending on what you need to get apart and how hard it is, a large flat screwdriver or a small pry bar, a large C-clamp, and you need a 13 mm 12-point socket.

Start with the 3/4" socket or your tire iron. I'm using impact tools. If you don't have impact tools, you're going to want to start with the tire on the ground, loosen the lug nuts first, and then take the tire off. We'll speed it up as I remove the lug nuts and then remove the tire and wheel. We are going to, kind of, stop right here and if you do not have impact tools, then at this point, you're going to want to remove the center hub nut. Best way to do that is with a large, it's a 1-7/16" nut. You also need to remove a cotter pin and the little retaining clip, and then have a helper hold the breaks down, and when they're holding the breaks, then use a breaker bar or a piece of pipe or both to get leverage and remove that center hub nut.

Next, we're going to want to remove the break caliper, two bolts, one here and one down here. First you're might want to take either a large screwdriver or a small pry bar and just work it into this hole and pry it out on the calipers. This helps to reset the piston some and it just helps to loosen them up as well. Now these two bolts are 11/16", it should come out pretty easy. Once you remove those bolts, you can pull the caliper with the help of your screwdriver or your pry bar, move the caliper off, and then you want to carefully put it over to the side here. Now your brake pads come off pretty easily.

You need to see this break pad. There's a line right in the middle. That's actually your wear indicator, and you can see that there's quite a bit of wear left on these pads. We're not going to replace them. I'm just going to take them apart, put them back together so I can show you. Then I'm putting them back on, same thing. Pry it right out. Then as far as your discs go, what you want to do is, they might be getting a little bit thin, but since I'm not replacing anything, I'm not too worried about them but what you can do is take the back of your fingernail and just run it along the disc. If you feel any deep ridges or anything, that's an indicator you might want to replace them.

To remove your rotor, you're going to want to remove this caliper bracket, which is two more bolts, here and here. These bolts are 3/4", and if you don't have an impact wrench, you're going to want a breaker bar or a piece of pipe to give you extra leverage on your ratchet. Let's do the first one with my impact wrench here. This top bolt, I pulled the ABS harness. It's in a little clip. I just pulled it back and out of the way. I'm going to use a 3/4" socket and a small extension. Just put those on the bolt. Put my ratchet together. What you probably want to do is invest in a piece of pipe like this. Put the pipe on the ratchet, hold the ratchet on the bolt, pipe gives you extra leverage. Pull nice and easy, and it makes it easy to get big tough bolts like that out.

I'm going to coat this liberally with some penetrating oil. I try using a smaller hammer and a piece of wood. I'm just going to show you the larger hammer is most effective. If all else fails, you can always get out your 5-pound sledge. I put the three lug nuts on, so that if I do break the rotor loose, it doesn't go flying, and the hope is that you can just give this one really good whack, and it will come off, or it will loosen up, and then that way you won't ruin this rotor if it's good, and that's what we did. I unscrewed those lug nuts, pulled the rotor off, checked the back to make sure there's no permanent damage.

All right, so now I'm going to take the cotter pin out here, and generally the best way to do is just break the pieces off. We'll just speed this up here as I struggle with the bent ends of the cotter pin. I'm just using a combination of pliers and screwdriver to bend them until they break. Then this cap comes off, and then the little spring retainer. Now we want to remove this center nut, 1-7/16". If you don't have impact tools like this, what you actually want to do is do this step before you take the breaks apart. What you'll want to do is have somebody get in the truck, hold the brakes which will hold the hub in place, then use a big pipe or breaker bar and loosen and remove this nut. Straighten out your hub. Now what you want to do is make sure that your axle has broken free from the hub, and in general, if you are saving your axle, you don't want to just bang on this, but what you can do is just take your hammer and give it one good rap, and watch very closely your axle in relation to your hub. If it moves a little bit, then it's broken free, and you're all set. Take the hammer, okay, it moved, so that's free, and we'll be good.

Now to remove the hub, there's three bolts, one here, one up here, and then one over on the front side right there. This is the back side of the bolts. You'll want to use a little screwdriver to get some of this crust off, and coat them up real good with penetrating oil. These bolts that hold the hub are 13 mm, and you'll need a 12-point socket. I'm going to put my ratchet on there, and they're usually pretty, kind of, crusty, so really push it on there, grab my pipe. They break loose pretty nice. Here's some very fast motion of me removing those bolts. It does take quite a bit of torque. I do use the ratchet and the pipe most of the time, but eventually they come out. This is the part where it gets fun.

With that chin shot, that's where we're going to end it for now. Please check out our other videos, so it's the same video, same name, just part two, to see the reinstallation of the hub. We hope this helps you out. Brought to you by www.1AAuto.com, your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the internet. Please feel free to call us toll free, 888-844-3393. We're the company that's here for you on the internet and in person.