kind of a noobish question...
im going to do new wheel bearing on my truck and for the life of my i cant remember how to properly set the preload on them. i havent done bearings like these since high school auto shop so its been well over 10 years now.
iv looked and searched on here and a few other forums and youtube but everything as far as how to's either come up for only 4x4s or they are completely different vehicles with different setups.
so how do i do it and do it properly?

 

Tighten down the nut snug to seat the bearings then back it off and re-seat the nut. The rotor should spin pretty freely with no binding and you should have almost no side to side play. I'd say 1 rotation or so on a spin. Piece o cake. Dont forget the cotter pin and to pack the berings properly.

 

ok see, this is where i get confused...
i was told last night by a friend to tighten down and bottom out the nut down all the way with a ratchet and then back it off until loose and then just finger tight + 1/4 turn on the nut.

 

You do want to tighten it down some....just to the point where you squeeze the excess grease out of the bearing, not all the grease tho not tight.. when you feel the rotor start to drag, that's far enough. Have you checked the online TSRM? it does tell you exactly how...
1. tighten to 25 ftlbs while turning the hub
2. loosen the nut (floppy loose)
3. by hand tighten the nut until you start to feel drag from the bearings then install the castle cap and cotter pin. if they don't line up, spin the cap on the nut and try again. If you want to go to the trouble, there's a spec for how much drag but even I'm not that OCD. look it up if you are.

 

yeah i saw the service manual but when it said to put the fish scale on and pull to a x amount of lbs, it lost me.

and no, im not THAT OCD, but close...

but thanks for the advise guys, going to go tackle this right now.

 

Do what I said and you'll be fine... If you werent so far away I would come do it for you. I dont wanna go high desert.lol