How much grease to pack in rear wheel bearings?

[polloelastico]

I finally got the old ones out, which was plain awful but I am glad it's over. I have the new bearings packed with grease and chilling in the freezer. I have my PVC pipe coupler to use to drive the new ones in as well as the grease seals. However, I am not sure if I need to add additional grease to the housing. It looks like there will be some air space around the center spacer and the trailing arm housing; do I fill that with grease? Once I get the new bearings in (god help me), do I just continue to pack it all up with grease? I worry about expansion and flow of the new grease I guess.

I hope to never have to do *this* again!

[Lee]

Fill it with as much grease as you can.

[BillWilliams]

To take out the rear seals and bearings, I used a 12" centering punch I bought from Home Depot. The length and the broad tip made fairly easy going in wacking the things out. Rotating around the bearing and seal on every wack.

To put them in, having a bearing and race driver makes it easier, will not damage the bearings or races and each side should take less than five minutes to set.

As far as grease, I filled that void but did not pack it.

Here is what the tool and tool kit look like and how it is used to drive in tapered races. The taper part of the tool can be flipped over to provide a flat surface to drive flat races and flat bearings

[polloelastico]

Excellent. I got both sides in tonight. It went much smoother than I imagined. After a quick rat-a-tat-tap around the edges with my trusty 4 lb. hammer to get it started, I used a flat piece of metal over the bearing and played 'whack-a-mole' to drive it flush. I then used a PVC coupler the same diameter as the outer race to sink it to its final resting place.

After one side was in, I smeared some grease around the inside of the housing, then placed the center spacer in and pushed some more grease in around that; insert spacer, bearing, whack, seal, whack... rise, lather and repeat.

I was really dreading this task, but it wasn't that bad after all.