So, my '06 1500 4x4 (80,000 miles) is making a nasty noise from the front driver's side (best way to describe it is a pulsating growl - almost like the tire is severely unbalanced, but louder. The sound increases with vehicle speed and gets a lot louder when turning even slightly left). It sounds very much like a wheel bearing, but when I jack it up the wheel has no play up/down or side/side.

The first thing I did was rotate the tires (since it almost sounds like a bad/unbalanced tire). No change.

There was a little play in the tie-rod end, so I replaced it (haven't realigned yet).

I just serviced the diff and didn't see any play in any of the gears.

Since it will be a bit of an ordeal to get the axel off to isolate and spin/inspect the bearing, I am going to wait until I have an axle and bearing on hand.

Question: Have any of you seen a wheel bearings go bad - but not get loose?

From the other posts I've read, at 80,000 mi. I should probably just replace the wheel bearings as preventative maintenance anyway...

 

Wheel bearings can still wear out even with very minimal to no play. They can develop metal debri in them and cause abnormal sounds.

 

Yes they can. Bad seal on the bearing allowing water/dirt can cause bearing failure, and still have no play.

 

yup. its the right side bearing.

 

Yep, had the growl on the right side, it felt fine with the wheel and tire mounted, no play and I couldn't feel or hear anything when I rotated the tire. Once I took the tire and wheel off and removed the brake caliper and rotated the hub, I could feel how rough the bearings were. I replaced the bearings on both sides and took care of the issues.

So the short answer to your question is "YES".

 

Thanks everybody. I've ordered up a replacement Timken bearing assembly - significantly cheaper to purchase online than buy local (a little more than half the cost). I'll post the results...

 

I see that you are 4x4, might be a good idea to have a hub ready too, I've heard that when the bearings go bad sometimes they eat the hub a little bit, that's why they sell the wheel bearing replacement kits with the hubs sometimes.

Hope that fixes your problem.

If it doesn't then I would get the truck re-aligned as, that can also cause some issues if it is causing too much "pull" to the outside or inside of the truck while traveling at speed.

 

Thanks everyone for your input! I finally found some time yesterday to swap out the bearing (hub assembly). The whole job took under 2 hours. It was indeed the driver's side front bearing that went bad. A couple more weeks driving on it made it a little more obvious even before I separated the axle from the hub. Once I pulled the axle from the hub and gave the hub a little turn, there was no doubt I had a bad bearing on that side.


Here are a couple of thoughts I have for others that are having the same issue:

• If you have the luxury of time, order your hub assembly off the internet - if not, ask the brick and morter store if they will match - a friend of mine got them to come down significantly at a local parts store. Otherwise, they are about 2x the cost.
• Search this site for the service manual to get the steps and torque specs
• Watch the 1aauto.com youtube video to see how it is done - I don't know how they were able to do it w/o removing the upper ball joint. I had to and you probably will to.
• I didn't remove the half shaft (axle) completely, just pulled it far enough out of the hub to get at the 18 mm bolts on the inside
• The '06 has a coil-over shock which makes separating the upper ball joint a brease - just a couple smacks with the malet did the job. Pre-2006 you will need a pickle fork and will probably destroy the dust boot.
• Use an impact wrench! I was able to get the 35mm axle nut and the 3 bolts holding the hub off w/o a problem

 

Great! That was pretty much what I found. Once that thing was off the truck you could definitely tell it was the right choice to replace it.