I have already paid the price and told my local guy to do it , just wondering how much of a pain it would have been to have done it myself?

He charged me $199 for the parts and when I look online most of the outfits are $150 to $175 so that is ok .

Most of the online auto part joints suggest some kind of special tool (bearing lock something?)

I got hit for about $200 labor  ( two hours?)which includes finding out what was making the grinding noise.

By the time I got hit for Hazmat (two shop rags?) and sales tax (fuck CT) it wound up being $467 Ouch!

Could a rusty shade tree mechanic like myself have handled that without getting in trouble ?    Oh yeah- Ct uses some crappy liquid salt solution that rusts the living crap out of everything and makes working on anything a real pain.

You could have done it yourself sure. Figure the tools if you didn't have them would be one hundred.

To put it in perspective I had all the right tools (bought for the job) and ended up trying to do something similar. My truck was not even rusty and I tried to pull the spindle to get to the spindle bearings for 4-5 hours. I gave up and put it back together since I was just doing mileage r&r.

My time and level of frustration would have been cheaper to have a shop do it.

I haven't done a chevy truck, I can't speak to the difficulty but if its as much as a pain as some of the ones I've done, fair price. Especially cars where they need to be pressed in on the car. Definitely one of those things that with the right tools it will go a million times easier, 2 hours of his labor, might be 4 or 5 of yours.

Sure you would have saved $300, but the amount of cussing and time being pissed off would have increased dramatically. Plus if it goes bad again or causes any sort of problems you have someone to blame...

pretty much what I was thinking when I told the guy to do it .

This vehicle is 11 years old but only has 80K on it . My main commuter is a 2001 Toyota Echo that has been good but it has 150+K on it and it makes me nervous to not have the truck for backup .

Unit bearings. Pull wheel, caliper, rotor. 36mm?  Nut on axel shaft. 3 bolts on back side of bearing, air chisel with blunt chisel to vibrate the rusty bearing out of the taper. Disconnect the abs sensor.

I consider myself to be a seasoned & good shadetree.  Recently, I replaced the same bearing on my 2000 Tahoe & I live in the rust belt, too.  

SOB of a job due to the rust.  

One of the three hub bolts would not come out, and I'm running an IR2135 impact.  Hammered on it so much I started rounding the 15mm bolt head.  Pounded on a 14mm socket to get a good bite.  Heated the joint (no torch, just MAPP), hammered some more.  Cracked the 14mm socket (yes, it was an impact socket).  Replaced with another one.  After two hours & several beers, finally got it out & finished the job.

I won in the end, but it wasn't easy....

is it the whole hub? on my 99 it was sealed. took about 30m from start to finish for both sides.

If everything goes well it's an easy job, even for a beginner.  

I replaced two hubs and a cv shaft in my driveway on a Chevy by the time I was 18...by myself.
I'm not the world's best by any stretch of the imagination, but if you are pretty mechanically inclined, you can do it.
It's more a matter of having the right tools and a few tips/hints/instructions to get past a few obstacles, and then it's usually pretty simple.

It's retarded easy.

I can do those in my sleep!


The axle nut is usually the hardest part to loosen without air tools.

Always use the speed sensor that comes with the new bearing or the ABS will probably act up.

Thanks all , I bit the bullet and paid my local guy to do it
If there is a next time I might consider doing it myself.

No worries!
That's not a bad thing if it's your DD and you felt unsure about it.
Next time, though, you can do it!

I'm getting ready to replace everything from the spindles out on a 1978 Dana 44 front end. Woohoo...

That is getting a scoop of ice cream easy to do.

Who said it was hard?

I replaced my first wheel bearing last year- I did it to avoid the $500 a dealer will charge to do it.

I found Timkin wheel bearings on Amazon for cheaper than an OEM bearing on Amazon (who was alot cheaper than the dealer)

Biggest problem was the galvanic corrosion with a aluminum knuckle and a steel bearing- that stuff is bonded with voodoo black magic. Nothing a 10lb sledgehammer and 4' pry bar can't coax free!  

Only way I'd pay to have a bearing done is if it's in the middle of winter- it's an easy job if you have a big hammer and pry bar.