A few months ago I started hearing a rhythmic scraping noise coming from the rear passenger side wheel. It's been getting progressively worse. I finally got around to lifting the car and noticed the hub is wobbly, and makes a clicking noise as it rotates. There is no play along the axis of rotation (i.e. in and out); only play in the camber.

Based on the wear on the bottom edge of the backing plate surface that meets the rotor, it seems the loose hub is causing the wheel to go off camber. This would explain why the sound is at its worst when turning left as the load shifts to the right side and presses the rotor and backing plate even harder together.

I attached a video showing the play in the wheel hub. You can see all the metal dust from the rotor and backing plate.

Is this a bad wheel bearing, or did the nut holding the hub on somehow loosen? AFAIK it hasn't been removed since I bought the car at 114k miles (about 228k on it now). Seems unlikely that it would loosen given the notch in the metal that prevents this. Obviously I should have addressed this 1,000 miles ago, but I'm a contractor and need my car every day. Thankfully I have access to another car for a week, so I'm going to drive that car until I take mine in or fix it myself.

*Edit: I finally got the damn cap off and the nut was not loose at all. 100% certain this is a bad bearing. Just ordered two hub assemblies from RockAuto. Hopefully they get here as soon as they say they will

 

Yeah I was about to say that bearing is toast. At least the rear bearings are a breeze to swap, don't even have to full with the brakes.

 

Should've replaced it 1,000 miles ago lol.

I'll upload pics of it later this week when I get the replacements.

 

The only piece of experience I can lend is the axle but needs a fairly mighty whack to put the crease back into it. If you have an impact getting it off is really easy.

Good luck, hope you don't skin your knuckles trying to get it done!

 

So I got the really bad bearing (passenger side) off with little trouble. Used the 2 ft Icon breaker bar from Harbor Freight and jumped on the end to free it. Didn't need to bend the stake up, as the torque was able to force it out.

I moved on to the driver's side, and for the life of me I cannot get the assembly to slide off the spindle. The inner race is completely seized on the spindle. I gave it several spray downs with liquid wrench and many hammer strikes, but nothing is breaking it loose. Think I'm going to have to disassemble the brakes and buy some lag bolts and nuts to press against the back plate to try and pull the thing off. Decided to call it for the night. Reassembled the drum and put the wheel back on, then lowered the car. I left the dust cap and hubcap off so I can give it another shot of spray tomorrow.

Here's some pics:

Passenger side hub assembly

Inner race stuck on spindle. Thankfully it came off very easily

Driver's side assembly. Has some play, but refuses to slide off.

Pried off the metal side of the bearing so I could get some liquid wrench in there. Shouldn't have done this, as now I can't drive it until I get it off...

 

O'Reilly got some rental tools that might help with pulling out the stuck hub.
https://www.oreillyauto.com/rental-t...ake-tire-wheel

And yea, I've made the mistake of trying to work on both sides at the same time on my Fit. For me, it's something to be avoided when it comes to wheel hub/bearing, brakes, ... as you can run into unexpected issues, and cause a long delay before everything is fixed up.

 

Went at it with the dremel…not what I was expecting to happen

Going to have to find a smaller cut off wheel to get it all the way to the back of the race so I can split the whole thing

 

FINALLY got the damn thing off. Unfortunately I cut a little bit into the spindle. Hope that doesn't cause any issues. If I do need to replace the spindle, does anyone know the part #? I could only find the 2007-2008 spindle (part #52200-SLN-A00). For the 2009 model it seems every supplier only carries the rear axle assembly and not the spindle alone. While I'm sure it wouldn't hurt to replace the entire thing, I simply don't have $1000 to drop on something like that.



Gouged the spindle when I was cutting the inner race off