M35A3 rear wheel bearing packing, with photos

[HDN]

I have a rear hub off my A3 for the first time on the account of gear oil coming out of the hollow stud. The outer bearing came out fine and the hub and drum slid off - it's a lot heavier than it looks! Anyway I was hoping the inner bearing would just come out, but it's actually driven in? I thought I could wiggle it out but it isn't really budging. The good news is that the inner bearing has plenty of grease and it seems it was just the axle seal on the outside had failed. There's no oil or grease on any of the brake components.

So at this point do I have to get a brass drift and drive the inner bearing out, or is there a way for me to pack it from inside the hub? From what I've been reading a seal would be destroyed if I drive the bearing out, but at the same time that doesn't seem important if I'm not running CTIS, which I'm not. Not exactly sure where to go here...

EDIT: I totally had a DUH moment. I missed step 11 in the workplan where it says "Using hammer and brass drift, tap inner bearing (24) from inner bearing cup (25). This is actually similar to disassembling the front wheel disc rotor-hub on my 2002 Savana, except that inner bearing is held in by an expendable seal that's driven into the hub behind the inner bearing.

EDIT 2: Driving out the inner bearing was pretty easy. I used a 2-ft piece of 2x2 wood and tapped on the bearing from inside the hub on each quarter a couple times with a light hammer. It popped right out on the 4th-quarter tap. Time to pack it!

EDIT 3: I designed and 3D printed a tool to make it easier to pack the inner wheel bearing. Thread and STL files are here: https://www.steelsoldiers.com/threads/packing-tool-for-m35a3-hub-inner-bearing.215250/#post-2518757

 

[HDN]

I learned something about using the hollow stud as a clue about gear oil in the bearings. I have my CTIS wheel valves removed for now and have brass pipe caps on the hollow studs. Three rear studs dumped a lot of gear oil and grease was washed completely from the outer bearing.

The fourth wheel only had a trace amount of gear oil in the hollow stud cap, so out of curiosity I started to pull the hub apart. Lo and behold, the outer bearing was also washed clean of grease, even though there wasn't nearly as much gear oil in the hub as the others had.

So even if you have a little bit of gear oil in the hollow stud, your bearings may need to be repacked. I've been replacing all the outer seals and quad seals as well. Fortunately there hasn't been any bearing damage. It probably helps that my truck has about 4500 miles on it and was a mail terminal truck, so it probably hasn't been run hard ever! I imagine with light-to-spec limit use, the packing and seals will last the interval specified in the LO at a minimum.