davidc

97 6cyl 4wd does a bad front wheel bearing make the axle shaft/ujoint move up and down and side to side in the housing that goes to the front differential?

Fsher21

Are you holding onto the tire and moving that around? When you have the chance, get under there and just start shaking s**t to see if anything is loose, but my hub assembly/bearing is shot and I have play both back and forth, and up and down. That is both with the tire jacked up and on the ground, feels like i just hand tightened the lugs then tested it for play. If you have some bad wear on the tire, that could be your bearing.

SuperGlue

Are you holding onto the inner axle shaft or the tire when shacking? To test for a bad u-joint, grab the inner drive shaft/u joint and push them back and forth to check for play, if there is play its a u joint. To check the wheel bearing grab the outside edge top of the tire, and the inside edge bottom of the tire and continusly push and pull the tire to check for play, if you feel anything then raise the vehicle till the tire is about three inches off the ground, get a 3 foot or so pry bar and place it under the tire to pry up, only pull up VERY LIGHTLY. lightly enough to where you can check a very slight popping as you pull up on the pry bar. Its a very slight popping and you wont feel it unless you are going really slow. If it pops, its a bad wheel bearing. Good news is that if its a wheel bearing, they are extremely easy to replace, the hub, wheel bearing, and the wheel studs are all one unit and get replaced as one, at least on my 89 its like that, may be different on your 97. Auto zone charges 99, i got mine for 37 off the internet.

Fsher21

Yeah i saw you troubleshooting on another thread, looks to me like it is your hub assembly. I am replacing mine this weekend I hope, with very basic tools. Now I just have to figure out where to put the tire that is worn to hell lol

SuperGlue

If you are going to replace the hub assembly make sure to rent a slide hammer and buy 3 lug nuts that you can ruin and not use again. It is damn near impossible to get the hub assembly out without one. Hammering out the hub assembly will ruin the threads on the 3 lug nuts you have to use, the studs will be fine but they get replaced anyways.

IronHorse-14

I had some gnarly sounds coming from my left front and did this test and had exactly the same thing happen. So what you're saying is that I have a bad bearing?