Rear left wheel carrier - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

I've damaged my rear left wheel carrier while pressing out the bearing. The gouges go right through the rim that stops the new bearing from being pushed out of the wheel carrier. The side walIs of the carrier are not damaged where the new bearing would be pressed into. Is the wheel carrier still safe to use or should it be replaced? 2001 Boxster S

I think it'll hold up just fine and is useable. But for peace of mind you might just check what a wheel carrier runs you at a breaker, I found them to be ok in price (cheaper than a wheel bearing and it might just have a good one on it as a bonus ) Do wonder how you managed to damage it that severe. There are cheap wheel bearing tools on the market which should be used both for extraction and for install...

I was using a SIR tool bearing extractor however the thrust bearing of the SIRTOOL shattered while trying to take out the bearing. The wheel bearing was very difficult in getting it started to remove.I went to plan B and modified my pipe bending tool however I wasn't watching carefully enough and the end of the 12T jack went inside the wheel carrier.

Ooff, understood. Let us know what you end up doing

Not recommending, nor endorsing, what you should do, but if it were mine, I’d slap a new bearing in it and let’er rip. Crazy how tight those bearings are, huh? I don’t have any pictures, but after busting a couple removal tools, I fabricated an extractor to get the driver’s side bearing out of my S.

I have a SIR B90 tool kit and have performed the rear bearing replacement task quite a few times on Boxsters, and numerous times on other cars. I last performed this task last week, on both front and rear knuckles of one of my 1997 Boxsters. It takes a great deal of force to break the thrust bearing that SIR includes in that kit, which I have managed to do myself. In my case, and I suspect in yours as well, the problem was incorrect selection of the disc to use on the inner side of the knuckle. That area is difficult to see, even with illumination, and is usually caked with road dirt and grease ( from either the bearing you’re replacing, or the adjacent CV joint). The key point is that the disc must be smaller than the hole in the knuckle so that it does not accidentally come to bear against the knuckle itself rather than on the bearing. If a disc is selected, of the several in the tool kit, that is too large, then when force is applied with the screw to pull the disc ( on the inside, out of sight) into the 2-piece ‘cup’ on the outside ( so that the outer edge of the bearing is also out of sight), then you are basically applying force to compress the aluminum casting. In that scenario, something’s gotta give: either the roller thrust bearing will fail, or the aluminum knuckle will fracture. I’m betting the bearing will fail first. So I suspect the reason you had trouble pulling out the bearing was that the inner disc was one too large for that knuckle. For the 2.5L Boxsters, I use the 8A disc, but it clears the hole in the knuckle by only about 2mm (eyeballed, not miked), so careful positioning by blind palpation is essential. Another option would be to use the next-smaller disc #7. It will not contact the outer bearing race but it will contact the inner race, which in turn will force the balls of that race against the inner part of the outer race, to force the outer race outward into to cup, removing the bearing.. All my above recommendations are only for the base 2.5 and 2.7 cars, not the 3.2 Boxster S. The Boxster S used a larger bearing in the rear so it would likely need a larger disc to pull it out. I have not had occasion to work on an S yet. As to your knuckle: I think if you will just dress down with your Dremel the scarred points to ensure that your new bearing seats fully, I think that knuckle will still be sound. Lastly, when you install your new bearing, lubricate the bearing and the knuckle with some sort of grease first. Had the mechanic before you done so, you would have had a much easier time pulling that bearing. Good luck! David Crowder

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+1 on what Mark is saying, your damaged hub carrier 'should be ok to use', but since a used carrier is cheap, IMHO, for a piece of mind I would replace it with a used one.

Don't know about the SIR tool, but I think in general the discs provided have a thicker inner part and a thinner outer part. To extract you just need to pick the one where the thick part fits nicely inside the bearing. The outer part should be far from the knuckle, no need to try and touch the outer race. Ball contact is at an angle, you will pull them out on the inner race. Installing the new one, just push on the outer race. I guess you could similarly use the inner race, but I would be hesitant to put that force on the new bearing. When pressing the hub into the bearing, be sure to pull it in against the inboard inner race.

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You must use the use the outer race... you do not want the force to pass by the ball bearings.

Update. I decided to reuse the slightly damaged carrier for 2 reasons. After carefully measuring the chunks taken out of the shoulder race I determined that 8% of the shoulder was missing. With 92% of it still intact I'm hoping there is enough design support to keep the bearing in place. While using a magnifying glass I could not see any damage to the bearing carrying surface. Driving will let me know if it holds up. A new carrier is too expensive for me and I couldn't find a used part in Canada. There were 2 used in the US and 2 in Europe that I could locate but shipping is very expensive. Anyway I feel confident in using the wheel carrier as is. After thinking about what happened old911doc was probably correct in that when I first set up the Sirtool I did use the wrong disc which contributed to the thrust bearing of the tool breaking. Otherwise the SirTool has served me well for replacing wheel bearings on the Boxster. Thanks for the replies.

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Not sure where in Canada you are located, but in southern Ontario there are a lots of part out Boxsters within an hour of me. If you need anything I'm sure we can find it.