Subaru press in wheel bearings- how DIYable?

My '01 Forester has 190k miles and I'm planning on replacing the front wheel bearings. I already have the bearings and seals. I know that the axle stubs will release pretty easily because I've had them out before and antiseized them. I'm planning on removing the whole knuckle from the car and using my 20 ton press. And I have a buttload of sockets for pressing stuff. So how bad is this job going to be? Are there any unexpected gotchas I should know about?

Is 01 before subaru switched to the bolt-in bearing assemblies? Because I have to say, that made it really, really easy to to bearings on my WRX :)

In reply to irish44j :

Yep, unfortunately it is.

We just changed one on my 05 WRX.  I was able to get the knuckle off just fine but ended up sending it to work with a friend because the 12 ton press wasn't touching it.  They ended up running a weld bead around the inside of the race and the bearing fell out after it cooled.  If you had access to a larger press or a welder you should be able to DIY.

I did it on my 99 Impreza without too much trouble. The hardest part is getting the knuckle supported in the correct orientation on the press to get a straight shot at the bearing. 

We have an old school federated auto parts with tools in the back and people that know what they’re doing.  For jobs like these if i buy the part there and take them the piece it goes into, they’ll R&R it for free.  Its way better than saving $5 ordering it online and fighting with a knuckle and a press.  Maybe see if one of those guys is around and return the stuff you bought already 

You've already got the press so give it a go. I did mine on the front of my 04 Legacy with my 12 ton press and it wasn't too bad (and I'm in the land of rust), in fact that was my reason to buy the press. I was happy to see the bolt on wheel bearings though on my 07 Legacy when I replaced that car.

Adam

Also in a pinch I've beat bearings out of a protege knuckle with a 10lb sledge, a big impact socket, and a bunch of braces propping it up.  Good square swings are crucial FYI lol.

The weld bead around the ID of the race is one of the best geezer tricks out there.

If you do that for removal, clean the bores good, heat the nuckle in your oven for an hour at 400, and freeze the races overnight, you should be able to do the whole thing without a press.  

I'm having trouble visualizing how the weld a race trick would work in this application. On these cars they have a big fat wide bearing pressed into the knuckle and then the hub is pressed into the bearing. I don't think there would be anyway to put aweld bead onto the inner race of the bearing unless the bearing was broken and split apart. And you'd still have to do some form of pressing operation (or slide hammer or whatever) to get the hub out of the bearing anyway, right?

In reply to freetors :

None of those tricks should be necessary without a press. It really isn't bad, just take out the snap ring and press them using a socket and press the new ones in. 

It's an easy job with a well equipped press if you know how to use it, getting the hub out is tricky if you don't have a big bearing splitter to support the upright, slide hammer works if you have one. The only trick I have is to grind down the OD of the old outer race a little so it slides into the upright far enough to be used as a driver, if you have a nice driver set that won't be necessary. Also remember to NEVER push on the new bearing though the bearing, if you're pressing in the outer race and put the force on the inner race you'll damage the bearing and be doing the job again pretty soon. 

So I finally got started on this. Just working on one side at a time. I started on the right. I had the knuckle pulled off pretty easily. And I got the entire hub and bearing and all the parts split apart without too much difficulty. I was fortunate to have enough junk on hand to do it all. Probably the most difficult part was getting that giant outer race out of the knuckle. It took several resets of my drivers and such to get it all the way out. But still no biggie. I'll see what happens when I start reassembling.

The old bearing didn't really look bad except the rollers were discolored purplish. Never seen that before. The outer races looked fine but I didn't look at the inners. This is only for the right side that I've disassembled so far.

Forgot to give an update on this. The whole job was actually pretty easy. It didn't even take that much force from the press to remove or install.