so i had a wheel bearing go bad on my ghia, the repair of which necessitated the removal of the axle. removing the axle made me inspect the CV joints more closely, which caused me to realize the boots need to be replaced. replacing the boots meant removing the CV joints, so i figured i might as well clean them up and inspect them well i’m at it. getting the CV’s off of the axle required way too many blows with a hammer. getting them back on required probably twice as many blows with an even bigger hammer. realizing afterwards that i had assembled part of the joint exactly opposite of how it was supposed to be assembled really made pounding the joints back off of the axle so much worse.
so now before i invest a great deal of energy and risk breaking several bones in my hand beating the shit out the axle and joint for a fourth time, i thought picking up a shop press might be a good idea. the question is how big of a press is necessary? i won’t be using it that often, so i’ve been looking at the offerings at harbor freight.
is a 12 ton likely powerful enough to push in or out most bearings and such? or for the few dollars more should i just go ahead and get a 20 ton and be done with it?
I bought the HF 12 ton and it seems alright for most tasks. I’m also of the thinking better to have more and not need it, than need it and not have it.
What year Ghia? I did them on some old air cooled I had with a race driver as the bearings then just get placed in and then you tap in the seal. Cake. Unless you did some kind of hub/spindle swap. I have a 20 ton press and it works great for bearings. Sometimes when the bearings are WAY past shot, they are a bit hard to remove so I would go with a 20 ton. I’m sure a 12 would be fine in most cases but I would go 20.
It is a '71. Getting the joints off each end required much more than tapping. One end was much easier than thd other, but both required a 4lbs hammer to convince them to come off. The worst part is the final 1-2mm to get the snap ring into the groove that holds the whole thing together.
getting the actual wheel bearings themselves in and out wasn’t too bad. But unless I was going to remove the entire trailing arm there is no other way than a hammer and drift to remove and install those.
I wish mine were older. I don’t much care for post '67 air cooled vws but this ghia was a good opportunity at the right time. Eventually I’ll pick up and older one. For now I’ll just keep it as a driver until I ever get my beetle put back together
Ended up just pounding the things back together over the weekend. Although after an errant blow on each end of the axle resulted in each cv joint popping apart requiring the whole process to start over, I’m definitely making this purchase before tackling the other side of the car.
For future reference i do not like the small harbor freight shop press. I think it was 12 ton. The ram is plenty strong but the frame on the small one is crap and will bend to shit far before the bottle jack is not strong enough. If you are buying one for wheen bearings get the 20 ton or get friends that have one already.
