Already covered it in another thread, a lot more long winded than this one, but today I messed up again...
Doing a partial rebuild on my car's front end. New CV axles, wheel bearings, and brakes. Basically throwing the buckzooka at it to get rid of a persistant squeel when in motion, and replacing the CV axles while in there since a boot was bad.
I started teardown a week ago. First time doing wheel bearings on a car like this. It's got a single bearing that presses into the knuckle from the inside, then the hub into the bearing from the outside, then once installed the CV stub shaft kind of holds it all together. Not really possible to remove the hub without destroying the bearing. One if the inner races stays stuck to the hub and not practical to try to remove it. When you take it apart you're pretty much replacing both. Read that before starting, but my first time seeing how it all comes apart first hand.
All went well on disassembly. Got the knuckle assemblies broke down. In process of reassembling the first and pressing the new hub in something felt funny. Turns out I Was pressing in the wrong spond and trashed that bearing. Strike one bearing and hub set. Knew what I was doing and the second went well. Went home and ordered more new parts to try again, then out of comission (for shop work) for the rest of the week due to medical.
FF to this afternoon. Didn't sleep much last night and should have just went home after work, but I want to get this thing back together. Got the messed up hub broken back down. New bearing smoothly presses right into the knuckle. Get the new hub pressed in about half way and realized I made a mistake. The disc brake dust shield is still sitting on top of the tool box, it has to go on between installing the hub and bearing. OOPS! Only way to install it now is remove the hub, and removing the hub is going to ruin the bearing and possibly the hub too.
I put everything down for the afternoon and went home. Hopefully by the time I get off work tomorrow I'll decide how to proceed.
A) Continue pressing hub in, forget shield until next time, and finish in a few evenings.
B) Order another new hub and bearing from RA for $60 (same as previous sets) and wait another 1-2 weeks to finish.
C) Buy another new bearing and hub locally for $130 and finish this weekend. (I've only got $120 total into the two sets I messed up for same brand parts.)
Worst that is likely to happen from not reinstalling the shield is premature wear on the bearing. If I take it back apart now I definitely destroy bearing. Leaning towards plan A, get what life I can out of the bearing and fix it next time. That is if there is a next time, it is a 200k mile Kia.