I checked 4 1990~1991 Civcs wheel bearings today.
You get some staragne responses when you call your
frinds and ask "Can I come over,jack your rear wheels
off the ground and listen to your wheel bearings?"

I am lucky that my frineds all accpet my, er oddness
with few comments.

I used a very old electronic stethoscope that I built
~30 years ago. It used a cermaic phono (remember them?)
amplified by a early OpAmp IC.

Here is the report:
My 1991 Civic
Right rear OK.
Left wheel a "little" noise
(Oh dod!)

Civic #2 suspected left rear bearing failure:
Right wheel ok, ery quite.
Left wheel, about 3 times as noisy as mine.

The other 2 civics a 1990 and 1991 had very silent
left and right rear bearings.

Reviewing the repair sequence I only have one
question. Will the old hub need a "whell puller" to
remove it? Just how tight is on . Will it "pop off"
in my hand after I remove the 24mm nut?

I changed my brake shoes 2 years ago so
it shouldn't be THAT hard to remove the drum again.

I will order a repalcement early next week. Even on
smooth black top at low speeds, with no other traffic
I couldn't hear any bearing noise even when I was sitting
in the hatch back area. Got stopped by a cop and nearly
got ticketed, but talked my way out of it, the cop was
impressed that I was concerned about a safety issue before
it got ugly. He told us, my wife was driving, about the
several accidents he had seen when a wheel "fell off" at
highway speeds. Sounded very UGLY!

I am not in a great hurry to fix this problem, I mean the
"normal" driver wouldn't even be aware of the "problem"
at this point, but I don't want to wait until the snow
flies either. It should be cool next weekend so I am
planing on having everything ready, do my friends first,
then mine.

Any thoughts?

Terry

 

I was able to punch out the old bearing race from the rear wheel of a
80 accord. After I did that - it was not a bearing problem but a
cupped tire. Is the bearing making a grinding noise - are you sure it
is not grit in the drum - did you try to move the wheel back and forth
by putting your hands at 6 and 12 oclock and tugging on one side then
the other and repeat at 9 and 3 oclock?

If you do replace the bearing - I was able to use the old bearing body
to protect the new bearing when beating it back into the bearing race.
Didn't damage it - the car now has another 150K on it.