How to tell if wheel bearing or ball joint is bad?, Updated! Options

[GriffGirl]

There are bad, evil, rubbing/grinding noises (sounds dirty heh heh) coming from my rear passenger wheel. Actually it sounds like the backing plate is rubbing against the rotor, but I'm pretty certain that's not what's going on. The sound is definitely related to the rotation of the wheel; it's louder when I go slower too although that could just be because there's less road noise to drown out the sound. The noise sounds not unlike when brake pads are completely worn and it's metal on metal - it's that grinding noise, not a squealing or high pitched noise at all. It's really loud from the driver's side though, I can only imagine what it sounds like outside the car!

I'm leaning toward bad wheel bearing but I wanted to check with you guys first to get some tips and ideas before I go buying the wrong part.

This post has been edited by GriffGirl: Feb 2, 2009 - 12:11 PM

[GriffGirl]

On topic: it was the damn emergency break. The spring that holds one of the shoes on ("hold down spring") broke - it looks like the tab that holds the mechanism in place broke, allowing the shoe to travel, which resulted in popping the hold down spring. So the grinding sound was the shoe rubbing inside the rotor. The spawning of satan sound was one of the wheel hub assembly bolts, oh, just cruising around freely inside that little area. It got caught - and left a nice deep groove inside the drum area. Good times!

So I, being an incessant packrat, took the hold-down spring assembly off the e-brake assembly off my drum brakes, which I never got rid of. Good thing. So it's back together, for now, but the spring is a little bit different and doesn't have that tab that broke off in the first place. So the shoe is still rubbing some, but I won't die driving to work this week. I will have it replaced by the end of the week (threads are damaged on the old one), because 3 bolts just doesn't instill confidence.

Richee - do you have a rear disc assembly? I need that hold-down spring, and well, I need the shoe too if you've got it. Rear passenger side - the shoe on the left (towards the rear of the car). There's a little gold colored thingie that holds the shoe down, it's about the size of a dime. You rotate the top part to allow it to pass over the pin holding it in place, then everything comes apart easily. PM me?

TRD - while I was out at the shop this weekend I FINALLY did my suspension! My new endlinks haven't come yet, but the old ones actually came off just fine. I started spraying everything down with PB Blaster about mid-week last week, so it wasn't really too much of a challenge. I used Batman's method using a vice grip and a socket wrench. Piece of cake. And since I have to go back out to the shop next weekend to fix the e-brake shoe assembly and put that 4th hub bolt in, I'll put the rear endlinks on. The springs are great though - I'm really happy with them. Thanks a million - you gave me a good deal and I really appreciate that.