By: Dave'

does anyone know the procedure for removing the rear hubs from a mk2 escort axle? is a special tool needed?

By: 'Mark Young'

Slacken rear wheel nuts 1/2 turn each. Jack up rear of car and support on axle stands chock front wheels. Remove rear wheels. Leave car in neutral and handbrake off. Remove drums sometimes there is a retaining screw between a pair of studs that need removal to free the drum. You will now see the hub on the end of the half shaft in the center of the shoes. There are four securing bolts in the drum back plate behind the hub flange. These are accessed through the holes in the hub flange, turn it 90 degrees to access the opposite pair. (The bolts are 5/16" unf with 1/2" hex head if your interested!!) With these removed you need to pull the hub / half shaft this can be done with a puller (official method)or by placing a redundant wheel backwards on the hub and bolting it on. Then hitting the rear of the wheel with a big hammer at even points around its rim to drive the halfshaft out (unnoficial method). This means the car has to be very well supported. You can also put a pair of large bolts through the holes in the hub flange with the nut behind and bearing on the flange and the end of the bolt pushing on the back plate you can wind the bolt to jack the halfshaft out (DIY method). Just out of interest why do you want to remove the hub / halfshaft?


PS:
If using the bolt method bear in mind the retaining plate that the four bolts were in has to be left free ie not trapped under the big bolts being used to extract the half shaft as this plate comes away with the hub / halfshaft.

By: 'Dave'

thanks for the swift & detailed reply :-)

I need to remove the hub in order to fit longer wheel studs to fit a set of alloys. Because of the backspace on the wheels i need to fit a spacer etc.