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[Cliffo B]

Did this job 3 yrs back (pre forum days) I took wishbone off and went to a small engineering workshop who had a hydraulic press they removed the old bearing and fitted the new one did a good job for £30.00

[Andy H]

Here is an old thread about bearing replacement clicky

I recall seeing a more detailed description in a thread last year but I cannot remember who was doing the bearing change....

[Jimbob]

Mark DTM and myself tackled one on my old estate about 2 years back.

Mark actually had the real vauxhall tool...it just bent.
There was no way the old one was coming out, so in the end we had no choice but to remove the whole rear trailing arm, and using a drift, sledgehammer the old one out, no mean feat at all.

IF you tackle the job, be prepared to be stranded, and sort a backup plan!

There are times when the job will go according to plan, but if this one doesnt, your car is going nowhere once youve started.

[SteveS]

The link from Andy H is interesting. From the pictures it looks like they used a substantial slide hammer to remove the hub and another tool looks like a hydraulic press to put the new bearing in, but the bit I imagine to be the hardest is to remove the bearing outer sleeve from the housing if its seize/corroded in.
kcl from Finland managed to do the job, but it does appear that he started in August 2007 and finished in March 2009. I was hoping I might be able to do it and only take the car off the road only for a weekend.

[Andy H]

A question before you start....

What condition are your rear brake disks?

When I first got my previous Omega I quickly came to the conclusion that the rear wheel bearings were going to need replacing because small changes in direction would trigger rumbling noises from the back of the car.

I left it for a while. MOT time came round and I did some pre MOT checks. The inner pads were rusted in to the rear calipers so I took them out, cleaned up the edges and put them back in. The inside faces of the brake discs were very rusty and clearly hadn't provided any useful braking force for a long time.

After the roller brake test there was a could of red dust hanging around the back of the car.

I never heard any more rumbling noises from the back of the car (I kept it for 5 years / 70000 miles) so I have to assume that rough brake disks rubbing against seized pads were the cause

[Boditza]

when the wheel bearings are gone your wheel most likely will have play if you grab the suspended wheel with one hand at 12 oclock and the other at 6, and pull up and down. this was my case and sorted out in a few hours at my mechanic. 20€ was the price but he did not know in what he was getting himself into

[SteveS]

Andy H,
I'm fairly sure it's not the rear brakes. I did those last March and from recollection I took off the Disc/drum to check the handbrake shoes. There seemed to be no problem there so refitted and adjusted up the handbrake.

The noise to me sounds more like a rumble than a rubbing noise.

[SteveS]

Boditza,
Just jacked the car up and checked the wheel bearing for play and it seems fairly tight still (handbrake off of course), so I don't think mine is too close to complete failure, just noisy. 

[Boditza]

mine had play in it.. verry small play but it was there

[kcl]

The link from Andy H is interesting. From the pictures it looks like they used a substantial slide hammer to remove the hub and another tool looks like a hydraulic press to put the new bearing in, but the bit I imagine to be the hardest is to remove the bearing outer sleeve from the housing if its seize/corroded in.
kcl from Finland managed to do the job, but it does appear that he started in August 2007 and finished in March 2009. I was hoping I might be able to do it and only take the car off the road only for a weekend.

  No, it didn't take two years, only two days! Yes, I'm a lazy writer...  The first one was done in 2007 and was alot easier than the other one I did last summer. The problem was this time how to get it tight enough! And still there is a small play, is there supposed to be?

The hub will come off by screwing long bolts to the wheel bolt holes (M12x1,5 thread) and the outer ring should come out with homemade puller (you'll easily figure out what you need when the hub is off). New bearing has to be cool when fitting, then it should be left alone for a while to "heat up" and then cold the hub in. This only applies when the parts are not rusted together. Both times I think (including making the tools etc) net time spent was around six hours... So, all the tools available should not be more that two hours at the carage