Replacing Hub Bolts (rear, Gen7)

February 20, 2008

Replacing Damaged / Broken Rear Hub Bolts - Toyota Celica 190 (2001)

**DISCLAIMER: If you are in any doubt as to your ability to complete this type of work, take your car to a qualified mechanic. This tutorial is for information only and may well contain inaccuracies. The components being worked on are fundamental to the safe operation of your car. This information is provided 'as is', and I will not be held responsible for any accident, injury including death, or other losses which you may incur.

This all began when I ordered a new alloy wheel fitting kit, so that I could replace a missing spigot ring. I got sent wheel nuts as part of the kit, but with the wrong thread pitch. By the time I’d realised that this was the case, I had mangled 3 out of 5 of my hub bolts to the point where I could no longer fit the correct wheel nuts, and therefore the wheel. Car was off the road…oh dear.

To fix this I had to replace the damaged hub bolts. I actually decided to replace all five as the parts are only cheap….

Rear Hub Bolt – Toyota Parts No: 90942-02049 £3.17 inc. VAT from Listers Toyota.

1. Tools Required

Trolley jack (if you think the Toyota one is made of some sort of soft cheese, like I do)

Axle Stands

WD40

Torque Wrench

Metric Hex Sockets (1/2” drive) 14mm, 21mm

Breaker Bar (or similar strong metal bar)

Hammer & small block of wood (not pictured)

Rubber Mallet or similar

Wheel brace

OE wheel nuts (the type with the washer)

Some M12 washers

Screwdriver

Pliers

2. Removal

jack the car up, and use axle stands. I stuck one under as a precaution but left the jacks supporting the weight. The Toyota OE butter jack under the rear jacking point and a 2-Tonne trolley jack under the rear suspension subframe cross member as shown below.

First remove the wheel (if it’s already on). If you can’t do this without a picture, put down your tools and go ring a mobile mechanic.

Next you’ll need to remove the brake caliper. This is about the least fun thing I have ever done in my life…

I sprayed quite a lot of WD40 on these about an hour before I started trying to take them off. I’m not sure whether it helped, because they were still incredibly hard to budge and very difficult to get to.

The bottom one can be accessed using a 5” extension bar for a ½” drive socket by feeding it and the 14mm socket through from behind the suspension arm shown below…

The top bolt, was a complete nightmare. You only have about 1.5” of clearance between the bolt and the suspension spring. The bolt itself is directly in line with the shock, so accessing it from behind with the extension bar through the coils of the spring was out of the question.

In the end it came off using a 14mm ring spanner, a hammer and a lot of patience. This wasn't ideal, as the bolt head was starting to show signs of rounding and I was worried the shock of the hammer blows might fracture the bolt... in the end it was OK... I'd love to know how Toyota go about removing these, as there's no mention of a special tool required in the Workshop Manual, and I doubt a universal joint for the wrench would have been able to withstand the torque.

The top caliper bolt is about ½” longer than the bottom caliper bolt, don't get them mixed up when you go to refit them (although I imagine this would be quite difficult to do without noticing).

Make sure the caliper is supported once you slide it off the disc, so as not to put tension on the brake hose. I placed the caliper on the suspension arm, and secured it in place using a bent wire coat hanger looped through the suspension spring to stop it from falling.

Next remove the brake disc. Make sure your handbrake is off before doing this. This step was also horrible, as the inside of the disc had rusted itself to the hub assembly. The correct way to remove the disc seems to be by using two bolts of a specific size. There are two smaller holes either side of the hole where the hub pokes through, and it looked to me like if you had the correct sized bolts you could screw them in and as they tightened they would force the disc away from the hub assembly….I did not have the correct sized bolts, but I did have a selection of hammers :)

Using a rubber mallet, I gave the drum part of the disk a good thump, rotated it a quarter turn, gave it another thump, and so on to loosen it. I then sprayed some WD40 around the hole in the middle where the hub comes through. Then it was a case of gently trying to prise the disc off using the flat blade like end of the OE wheel wrench between the back of the disc and the solid part of the caliper bracket. I kept prising the disc gently, being careful not to damage either the disc or caliper mounting and then rotating it and prising it again. I kept doing this for a few minutes and eventually it started to ease off.

Looks like these will need replacing soon, the infamous inside corrosion is beginning to set in, and these are less than two years old….

Once the disc is off you can start removing the hub bolts. It became apparent straight away that there is not enough clearance for them to be removed without first removing one of the handrake shoes.

I removed the shoe nearest the front of the car. Unclip the spring shown in the top of this picture. Then using needle nose pliers and a screwdriver, force the metal plate inwards with the tip of the screwdriver whilst grabing and turning the green metal pin poking through it 90 degress with the pliers. The clip then comes off, and the shoe can be moved freely.

The picture below shows the metal clip and pin removed…

I let the brake shoe dangling off the bottom spring. The adjusting mechanism drops out at this point because there’s no pressure to hold it in place, but it is easily slotted back in when reassembling.

With the brake shoe removed, you can now hammer the old hub bolts out.

Time to fit the shiny new ones!

Once fitted through the holes in the hub assembly from the rear, I wasn’t able to hammer them into place as there isn’t enough room, nor could I get any leverage on anything sturdy enough to force them in and they are VERY tight.

Using the washers and OE wheel nut I tightened the nut on each bolt to pull it through, using the washers to prevent damage to the hub assembly…

Once they were all tightened and seated nicely, it was time to reassemble the brakes. First I attached the top retaining spring to the brake shoe, replaced the metal pin and clip and then slid the adjuster mechanism back in between the bottom of both shoes.

Clean up the disk with some brake cleaner. Slot the disc back onto the hub, slide the cliper back on, then replace both of the caliper bolts. I was able to torque the lower one up to 47N-m as specified, but the top one again could not be reached using the torque wrench so it was done by feel.

Replace the wheel, tighten the nuts in order, going from one nut to it’s opposite and so on. Lower the car on the jack until wheel touches the ground, then torque the wheel nuts to 103N-m.

Quick spin round the block, couple of low speed emergency stops, no clicking, clonking, knocking or scraping…. Park up, re-torque the wheel nuts. I will check the wheel nuts every day for the next two or three days just to make sure there hasn't been any movement of the hub bolts resulting in the nuts coming loose.

JOBS A GOODUN!!! :D