Non-serviceable front wheel bearing - only words in manual - throwaway van?

Fair enough. Now I used the 1994, SERVICE MANUAL, Town & Country, Caravan, and Voyager, by Chrysler Corporation. Front Wheel Drive, All Wheel Drive, AS. Part number 81-370-4105. Page 5-53 is for WHEEL BEARINGS which has only repair info for the Rear Wheel Bearings. "Front wheel bearings on both front wheel drive and all wheel drive vehicles are a permanently sealed non-serviceable bearing assembly." That's nice, but uh, guys and gals, what to do about a bad front wheel bearing? Not a hint. Nor a clue. Nor a referral to any other manual or source. Hmmm? I guess one sees Chilton for that.

I'll await your findings. As I said before, there is not any other manual available for me, as a mere customer, that would have this info. If you find something, let me know if it's only for mechanics at the dealer, which is entirely possible. But remember, I was posting as a customer, not like a dealer mechanic, like yourself.

In rec.autos.makers.chrysler on 21 Aug 2005 06:14:16 -0700 " snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com" posted:

Good ones.

Since you like this stuff, I'll give you one more.

"Early detection of cancer increases the survival rate." They define the survival rate a being alive (or alive with no or some small level of symptoms. I don't know which and it doesn't matter for this point.)

So if diagnosis is in 1995 and the person dies in 1999, he didn't survive.

If diagnosis was earlier, in 1993, and he dies the same day in 1999, he is a survivor.

(Now I don't think they were trying to be cagey or malicious when they adopted this standard, and I don't think many people get caught up in this, but I don't know and it's still a potential pitfall. It probably does catch people who have slow acting cancers. OTOH, it might not catch people with fast acting or very slow acting cancers. And the same sort of routine could be used for other than cancer with even worse results.)

I knew one or two more good ones, but can't think of one now.

If you email me, please let me know whether or not you are posting the same letter. If necessary, change domain to erols.com.

Directions are given as if you know nothing. There's a big range here but I don't know who knows what.

Being a cancer survivor myself I'll set you straight on that.

First, that's an old saying because there used to be the idea in the medical field, supported by some studies, that if you were 'cured' of cancer, and remained alive for 5 years after being pronounced cancer free, that your chances of getting cancer again were the same as the general population.

However, some more recent studies have shown that very much later in life your chances of recurrance of the cancer you had rises above that of the general population.

So the thought today is that if you have ever got cancer, even though you may get 'cured' of it, for the rest of your life you need to go in for routine checks. In my case that is a blood sample once a year and they check for certain markers in the blood that are present with the type of cancer that I had.

The fact is that everyone has cancer cells in their body at all times, constantly occuring and being destroyed by the white blood cells in your blood, just the same as any other pathogen. The only difference between a normal person and someone who 'has cancer' is the number of cancer cells. In a normal person they are virtually undetectible, because there are so few of them, and they last for such a short time, they do not get a chance to gain a foothold and create a tumor.

So a lot of this depends on your point of view. You can't really be a "survivor" of a disease that you always carry around with you. Also, for those who have had cancer once, the same weakness or defect or whatever in their body that allowed the cancer cells to gain a foothold to begin with, is probably still there even after you have been 'cured'

Secondly, I think you misread the original phrase anyway. As I recall the line was:

"Early detection of cancer increases the chances of being cured"

In short, this is a definition of "cured" that ignores the current thinking on cancer, and basically says that there's a point at which you no longer have cancer. That is, in fact, true for the majority of types of cancer - early detection increases the chance that the cancer cells in the body of the patient will in fact respond to chemotherapy or radiation or whatever. It also reduces the amount of chemo or radiation or whatever that the patient has to have.

Anyway, you will run into a lot of bogus sayings and advice like this in cancer treatment. The reason is that with cancer, unlike many diseases, there's a definite coorelation between patient attitude and remission. Patients that believe they are going to beat the cancer have a much higher rate of the treatment working for them, this is true of all cancers, even the real nasty ones. So, if the patient is someone who doesen't understand statistics, the doctors have no qualms about lying like dogs to them. As a matter of fact, that is what happened in my case, every doctor I talked to assured me I would make a full recovery, while behind my back they were telling my family that it would be a miracle if I survived.

And, a number of years later I also lied like a dog to the wife of my minister at the time, who had breast cancer, and after her ordeal was over she told me how much she appreciated me telling her that eventually she was going to be able to eat a McDonalds hamburger again.

Ted

Re-read the page. Didn't you notice the sentence:

"However, if during servicing of the brake system, service to a sealed wheel bearing assembly is required, refer to Group 2 Suspension in this service manual"

It is on that page, first paragraph.

Then if you refer to Group 2, specifically Page 2-21, there is the sentence:

"If a hub and bearing assembly needs to be replaced, be sure that the replacement assembly has the same size wheel mounting stud pattern as the original part. This unit is serviced only as a complete assembly"

This is right in the middle of the instructions on how to remove it. Clearly the Dealer Way of doing this job is to remove the entire hub and bearing, then replace that. This is probably because they figure that most dealerships don't have arbor presses and also don't have the time to go to a bearing distributor and get a replacement bearing. The Everybody Else way is to remove the hub and either go to an auto parts store which presumably has a "rebuilt" hub and bearing assembly on the shelf, or go to a bearing dealer who will read the numbers off the bearing and supply you with a replacement, then you go find a machine shop who will press the old one out and press yours back in.

Guess what, I'm not a dealer mechanic or even a professional mechanic.

The problem I think your having is that the Factory Service Manuals are written for people who have a nodding acquaintance of how to go about repairing a car. I frankly am amazed myself at the level of detail that they go into. For example the FSM you have spends a total of 13 pages beginning on page 2-32 on how to go about rebuilding a half-shaft, which is almost rediculous considering that you can buy a remanufactured one for $70 from NAPA - it's not cost effective for a professional or a DIYer to fool with it. Not to mention that unless you spend all day long rebuilding half-shafts, you probably are going to botch something and that's all you need is for a CV joint to fly apart on the highway.

However the FSMs are NOT written for someone who repairs a car once every 10 years when the planets are aligned and the moon is in tune. They are NOT a basic car repairs manual. And also, many of the repair procedures in the manual are dreamed up by engineers sitting looking at a CAD drawing and perhaps tested out a few times on a prototype that doesen't have 5 years of underbody rust on it. They also suffer from the assumption that you want to preserve everything. For example many FSM's will go into great detail on how to take apart an exhaust system, but a lot of shops will simply use a cut-off tool to chop the entire muffler and tailpipe assembly right off then weld on a new set - it's less labor time for them.

There really is no substitute for getting in there and looking at things. If you had spent a few hours jacking up your car then taking one of the front wheels off then studying how the suspension knuckle was put together, the manual would probably have become a whole lot clearer.

People sometimes ask me how I know so much about my cars and I tell them I read the manual. And I do - but I don't just sit in an armchair and read the entire thing cover to cover and expect to know everything. Instead I read a section at a time, then study the real life parts and perhaps take things apart, then read the next section and repeat the process.

Ted

Thanks for pointing that out, namely my mistake. The Shop Manual comes through. I missed that while thumbing throught the Suspension chapter. I guess my brain is on the way out or I am distracted by problems far more serious than my minivan having problems down the pike.

Although it's embarrassing, I'm glad to finally have the correct information. And someone emailed the list of tools I would need to disassemble the hub, like a breaker bar, large socket set, ball joint separator, et cetera. So it's not doable with the tools and equipment I have ready. I can't even find my jacks and floor stands and ramps. Come to think of it, I could not even get my lug nuts off after the put the tires on with the air wrench. I was trying to stand on the 4-way lug wrench and though, nah, I'm going to see the mechanics.

And this is what was posted on the internet and probably comes from the shop manual, so Bill Putney's observation was correct. So was Maxpowers. Almost everyone was correct. And so I learn.

Actually, this was done, not by me, but by two mechanics who diagnosed the problem. It was difficult since it's just beginning so hard to know if it's a tire problem or a bearing. And if a bearing, which side. They actually spent close to two hours on this. No charge because they wanted to avoid pro-rating a new tire which is fine.

If I had found the relevant section, the whole thing would have become a lot clearer to me. I'm relieved that the shop manual comes through.

Oops, I'm wrong, you're right. Way to go, thanks. I found the relevant pages and chapter thanks also to Ted Mittelstaedt.

What a way to start the day being so wrong.

looking at manual now but Ted already posted what I was gonna tell you. I knew it was in the book somewhere

Glenn

OR go to the parts store and get a new bearing assembly.... What's the big mystery here?

This was more then a day being wrong, it started on the 20th

the 20th, I would not have posted what I did.

But I did not know. And to start the work week on such a wrong note is what I was thinking when I posted that.

No mystery anymore. Show's over. Thanks everybody for your inputs.