wheel bearing grease seal ?

thanx for the responses/help. ya"ll confirmed what i thought. put in a new seal yesterday, using the 2x4 trick.....thanx again

RCMAN46 wrote:
...Last time which I hate to admit I installed the seal before the bearing.

That makes two of us.

I always set a short piece of 2x4 on top of the seal, and tap the 2x4 with a hammer - it makes it a LOT easier to get the seal evenly seated, and flush with the outer surface of the hub (brake drum)

When I do bearings I have a couple extra seals for such an event.

Last time which I hate to admit I installed the seal before the bearing.

Something for you younger ones have to look forward to.

Seals that are slightly out of whack can be straightened out 99% of the time. However, if it can't be straightened out, then you must have it in WAY out of whack. Remove and replace. What are seals, $5 or $6 at most? Not worth it to take a chance.

It should be straight. Don't leave it like that or it will fail quickly..

Ya, I'm thinking it should be straight. If you think about the seal going round, and round, as you drive down the road if the seal is crooked it's going to ,,,, Something. It's going to wobble on the shaft and make a wider foot print on the shaft and that is going to make it wear quicker, maybe. It's going to have to,,, flex each time around because the axel shaft is straight and it is not,, or something. I really don't know I'm just to get a mental picture of what it would look like spinning on the axel crooked.

How crooked it is will determine how fast it goes bad, but it will fail prematurely.