I was questioning the condition of my wheel bearings on my rig a couple of weeks ago while driving on some "bull" dust trails. It seemed that when I was traveling a low speeds the wheel bearings were making a repeated squeaking. After we were off the trail I gave my brakes a shot of brake cleaner, since returning home I have not heard the squeak again.

My question is besides putting the Monty on stands and checking the bearings for "slop" or "stiffness", how can you check the bearings for wear? The bearings come as sealed unit, and I'm fairly sure you can't repack them (that's what the mitsu mechanic at the dealer told me). Since there's no way to repack them, how do you check to see if they're properly greased? Do you have to wait until they seize in some remote area before you know it's time to replace them?

I priced the OEM units and they are over $300 per bearing for the fronts and over $200 per bearing for the rears. My Monty has 103,000 miles on it at present with very few water crossings (it's almost all dust and rocks where I drive).
Thanks

I know that some 01's and maybe some early 02's had bad seals on the front bearings allowing water in resulting in rust of the rollers and races. You can replace the bearing inside the "knuckle" on the front, or do what MMC does and replace the whole thing. Can't remember the price of the bearing itself, but I priced the whole unit at about $225 a side for the fronts.

As for the rear, I really haven't heard of anyone having issues out of them. I have 146,000mi on my 01 Limited and it's doing worderful bearing-wise.

I think there is a tech thread on front bearing replace ment of the Gen III on here somewhere.

I checked at the library on the AllDataPro and this is what I found:

TSB 03-26-002
front bearing noise

60 mo/60,000 warranty

sounds like the same senario as the harmonic balancer,,,
the torque has been upped to 147 ft.lbs.
The castle nut has been redesigned.

The new nut is a castle and is self locking and can only be used once. It comes with threadlock on the threads.

The nut is : MN103380

The complete kit---the bearing/hub assembly with nut , washer and cotter pin : MN103586

Looks like bearings are not servicable, so shelling out bucks is the only fix according to alldatapro.

I didn't see anything yet on the seals, but I'll look again on the site tomorrow.

Thanks for the info.
That's the same set of facts I found.
I appreciate the assistance.