I am looking into replacing the front wheel bearing assembly on my 1994 Accord LX-R.

It howls/wines when i turn slightly to the right, which leads me to believe the faulty bearing is the left one.

How easy is this task to perform? How do i get the rotor off of the axle spline? Is the bearing unit just a sealed bolt-on assembly?

Also. Is there a way to find out when a timing belt needs to be replaced. I bought the vehicle at 167,000km 5 months ago and am not sure if the belt has been replaced (can i find out somehow?).

Thanks.

 

Wheel bearing replacement is a pain. You have to pull the whole assembly out. The hub is usually jammed into the arm pretty well, so you'll have to beat that out and then have the old bearing pressed out of the hub, and the new bearing pressed in, then reassemble. You will know if the bearing is bad, it will have play from side to side. As for the timing belt, you just have to pull the timing cover off and take a look at it.

 

For the timing, best to do it as it has high enough miles that it should be done. Get a kit that comes with the belts (timing and balancer shaft) and both the bearings and might as well do the water pump while you are in there ( I made that mistake on an older one I had, two mths later I had to tear it all apart again to replace the water pump).
Then get a bottom end kit, comes with all the gaskets you will need and then some.



As for the wheel bearing. Yea, pain in the ****.

 

You can't replace you wheel bearings yourself unless you have a press. First you would have to remove the wheel and axle nut. Then either remove the knuckle from the car or remove the axle from the hub. Either way, you need access to the backside of the knuckle where the axle is at. Once you have access, remove the four bolts that hold the bearing to the knuckle. If your luckly the hub/rotor/bearing assembly will come out. If your not, it will be rusted and froozen in there. Then your best bet is to remove the knuckle from the car, if you haven't already, and take it to a machine shop. Have them press the bearing out of the knuckle since it's rusted in there. Then have them press the old bearing and inner race off the hub and press the new bearing on. Then make sure the inside of the knuckle where the bearing slides into is cleaned up and lubed a little to prevent it from rusting in there again. Then just put everything back together. When I did my brakes all around, I also replaced the front wheel bearings. Mine were rusted in there so I just took everything to a machine shop and had them press everything apart and put everything back together with trueing(sp?) the new rotors up, cost me $25 per side. So $50 dollars and one hour later I came home and just bolted everything up and it worked great.

As for checking your timing belt, there is no way of visually inspecting it. Your best bet is to just replace it. When you do that, replace the balancer shaft belt, both tensioner springs, water pump, thermostat (since coolant is already drained), cam seal, crank seal and make sure the retainer to hold the front balancer shaft oil seal in is in place. There was a recall for that a while ago, it's probably been done but just make sure it's there. Also, since you've pulled the valve cover, you probably should replace that gasket as well. And since the valve cover is off, do a valve lash adjustment. Your already there, might as well take the extra 15 minutes or so to check it and adjust if needed. Also, if you plan on doing the timing belt, run a search on "timing belt" and you'll get a lot of results. Read through there to see what people have done and what mistakes they've made so you don't.

Here's a good one to read for timing belt changes, it has some good sugestions and a bad one (or atleast I think is).
https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=912676

Also, it wouldn't be a bad idea to buy a manual for your car if you plan on doing work on your car. Helm Inc sells really good manuals, they are supposedly factory reprints or something like that. They are a bit expensive but it'll pay for itself in the labor fees you'll save from doing your own work.

GL and have fun.