Non-serviceable front wheel bearing - only words in manual - throwaway van?

I will give you the page number and chapter number when I go into the shop
tommorro, along with the part number or the shop manual

 

Fair enough. Now I used the 1994, SERVICE MANUAL, Town & Country,
Caravan, and Voyager, by Chrysler Corporation. Front Wheel Drive, All
Wheel Drive, AS. Part number 81-370-4105. Page 5-53 is for WHEEL
BEARINGS which has only repair info for the Rear Wheel Bearings. "Front
wheel bearings on both front wheel drive and all wheel drive vehicles
are a permanently sealed non-serviceable bearing assembly." That's
nice, but uh, guys and gals, what to do about a bad front wheel
bearing? Not a hint. Nor a clue. Nor a referral to any other manual or
source. Hmmm? I guess one sees Chilton for that.

I'll await your findings. As I said before, there is not any other
manual available for me, as a mere customer, that would have this info.
If you find something, let me know if it's only for mechanics at the
dealer, which is entirely possible. But remember, I was posting as a
customer, not like a dealer mechanic, like yourself.

 

In rec.autos.makers.chrysler on 21 Aug 2005 06:14:16 -0700

Good ones.

Since you like this stuff, I'll give you one more.

"Early detection of cancer increases the survival rate." They define
the survival rate a being alive (or alive with no or some small level
of symptoms. I don't know which and it doesn't matter for this point.)
5 years after diagnosis.

So if diagnosis is in 1995 and the person dies in 1999, he didn't
survive.

If diagnosis was earlier, in 1993, and he dies the same day in 1999,
he is a survivor.

(Now I don't think they were trying to be cagey or malicious when they
adopted this standard, and I don't think many people get caught up in
this, but I don't know and it's still a potential pitfall. It
probably does catch people who have slow acting cancers. OTOH, it
might not catch people with fast acting or very slow acting cancers.
And the same sort of routine could be used for other than cancer with
even worse results.)

I knew one or two more good ones, but can't think of one now.



If you email me, please let me know whether
or not you are posting the same letter.
If necessary, change domain to erols.com.

Directions are given as if you know nothing.
There's a big range here but I don't know who knows what.

 

Being a cancer survivor myself I'll set you straight on that.

First, that's an old saying because there used to be the idea in the
medical field, supported by some studies, that if you were 'cured' of
cancer, and remained alive for 5 years after being pronounced cancer
free, that your chances of getting cancer again were the same as the
general population.

However, some more recent studies have shown that very much later
in life your chances of recurrance of the cancer you had rises above
that of the general population.

So the thought today is that if you have ever got cancer, even though
you may get 'cured' of it, for the rest of your life you need to go in
for routine checks. In my case that is a blood sample once a year and
they check for certain markers in the blood that are present with the
type of cancer that I had.

The fact is that everyone has cancer cells in their body at all times,
constantly occuring and being destroyed by the white blood cells
in your blood, just the same as any other pathogen. The only difference
between a normal person and someone who 'has cancer' is the
number of cancer cells. In a normal person they are virtually undetectible,
because there are so few of them, and they last for such a short time,
they do not get a chance to gain a foothold and create a tumor.

So a lot of this depends on your point of view. You can't really
be a "survivor" of a disease that you always carry around with you.
Also, for those who have had cancer once, the same weakness or
defect or whatever in their body that allowed the cancer cells to
gain a foothold to begin with, is probably still there even after you
have been 'cured'

Secondly, I think you misread the original phrase anyway. As I
recall the line was:

"Early detection of cancer increases the chances of being cured"

In short, this is a definition of "cured" that ignores the current
thinking on cancer, and basically says that there's a point at
which you no longer have cancer. That is, in fact, true for the
majority of types of cancer - early detection increases the
chance that the cancer cells in the body of the patient will in fact
respond to chemotherapy or radiation or whatever. It also
reduces the amount of chemo or radiation or whatever that
the patient has to have.

Anyway, you will run into a lot of bogus sayings and advice
like this in cancer treatment. The reason is that with cancer,
unlike many diseases, there's a definite coorelation between
patient attitude and remission. Patients that believe they are
going to beat the cancer have a much higher rate of the
treatment working for them, this is true of all cancers, even
the real nasty ones. So, if the patient is someone who doesen't
understand statistics, the doctors have no qualms about lying
like dogs to them. As a matter of fact, that is what happened
in my case, every doctor I talked to assured me I would
make a full recovery, while behind my back they were telling
my family that it would be a miracle if I survived.

And, a number of years later I also lied like a dog to the wife
of my minister at the time, who had breast cancer, and after
her ordeal was over she told me how much she appreciated
me telling her that eventually she was going to be able to eat
a McDonalds hamburger again.

Ted

 

Re-read the page. Didn't you notice the sentence:

"However, if during servicing of the brake system, service to a sealed wheel
bearing assembly is required, refer to Group 2 Suspension in this service
manual"

It is on that page, first paragraph.

Then if you refer to Group 2, specifically Page 2-21, there is the sentence:

"If a hub and bearing assembly needs to be replaced, be sure that the
replacement
assembly has the same size wheel mounting stud pattern as the original part.
This unit is serviced only as a complete assembly"

This is right in the middle of the instructions on how to remove it.
Clearly
the Dealer Way of doing this job is to remove the entire hub and bearing,
then
replace that. This is probably because they figure that most dealerships
don't have arbor presses and also don't have the time to go to a bearing
distributor and get a replacement bearing. The Everybody Else way is to
remove the hub and either go to an auto parts store which presumably
has a "rebuilt" hub and bearing assembly on the shelf, or go to a bearing
dealer who will read the numbers off the bearing and supply you with
a replacement, then you go find a machine shop who will press the old
one out and press yours back in.

Guess what, I'm not a dealer mechanic or even a professional mechanic.

The problem I think your having is that the Factory Service Manuals are
written for people who have a nodding acquaintance of how to go about
repairing a car. I frankly am amazed myself at the level of detail that
they
go into. For example the FSM you have spends a total of 13 pages
beginning on page 2-32 on how to go about rebuilding a half-shaft, which
is almost rediculous considering that you can buy a remanufactured one for
$70 from NAPA - it's not cost effective for a professional or a DIYer to
fool with it. Not to mention that unless you spend all day long rebuilding
half-shafts, you probably are going to botch something and that's all you
need is for a CV joint to fly apart on the highway.

However the FSMs are NOT written for someone who repairs a car
once every 10 years when the planets are aligned and the moon is
in tune. They are NOT a basic car repairs manual. And also, many of
the repair procedures in the manual are dreamed up by engineers
sitting looking at a CAD drawing and perhaps tested out a few times
on a prototype that doesen't have 5 years of underbody rust on it.
They also suffer from the assumption that you want to preserve
everything. For example many FSM's will go into great detail on
how to take apart an exhaust system, but a lot of shops will simply
use a cut-off tool to chop the entire muffler and tailpipe assembly
right off then weld on a new set - it's less labor time for them.

There really is no substitute for getting in there and looking at
things. If you had spent a few hours jacking up your car
then taking one of the front wheels off then studying how the
suspension knuckle was put together, the manual would probably
have become a whole lot clearer.

People sometimes ask me how I know so much about my cars and
I tell them I read the manual. And I do - but I don't just sit in an
armchair and read the entire thing cover to cover and expect to
know everything. Instead I read a section at a time, then study the
real life parts and perhaps take things apart, then read the next section
and
repeat the process.

Ted

 

Thanks for pointing that out, namely my mistake. The Shop Manual comes
through. I missed that while thumbing throught the Suspension chapter.
I guess my brain is on the way out or I am distracted by problems far
more serious than my minivan having problems down the pike.

Although it's embarrassing, I'm glad to finally have the correct
information. And someone emailed the list of tools I would need to
disassemble the hub, like a breaker bar, large socket set, ball joint
separator, et cetera. So it's not doable with the tools and equipment I
have ready. I can't even find my jacks and floor stands and ramps. Come
to think of it, I could not even get my lug nuts off after the put the
tires on with the air wrench. I was trying to stand on the 4-way lug
wrench and though, nah, I'm going to see the mechanics.

And this is what was posted on the internet and probably comes from the
shop manual, so Bill Putney's observation was correct. So was
Maxpowers. Almost everyone was correct. And so I learn.

Actually, this was done, not by me, but by two mechanics who diagnosed
the problem. It was difficult since it's just beginning so hard to know
if it's a tire problem or a bearing. And if a bearing, which side. They
actually spent close to two hours on this. No charge because they
wanted to avoid pro-rating a new tire which is fine.

If I had found the relevant section, the whole thing would have become
a lot clearer to me. I'm relieved that the shop manual comes through.

 

Oops, I'm wrong, you're right. Way to go, thanks. I found the relevant
pages and chapter thanks also to Ted Mittelstaedt.

What a way to start the day being so wrong.

 

looking at manual now but Ted already posted what I was gonna tell you. I
knew it was in the book somewhere

Glenn

 

OR go to the parts store and get a new bearing assembly.... What's the
big mystery here?

 

This was more then a day being wrong, it started on the 20th

 

the 20th, I would not have posted what I did.

But I did not know. And to start the work week on such a wrong note is
what I was thinking when I posted that.

 

No mystery anymore. Show's over. Thanks everybody for your inputs.