replacing wheel bearing in '92

The front passenger side wheel bearing on my sister's '92 sonata is bad... i believe the car is non-abs. anyhow, we're trying to replace the wheel bearing, and according to the manual the entire wheel/hub assembly needs to be removed with the halfshaft removed from the transaxle, the half shaft pressed out with a special tool, and then the disc seperated from the hub/knuckle with a special tool.

i have several questions:

1) does the halfshaft need to be removed from the transaxle to press it out? it has some play that you can push it back and forth with it still in the hub assembly and attached to the transaxle, but then it bottoms out. Is it truly pressed into the assembly, or if i remove the wheel/hub assembly, will it slide off the halfshaft? im trying to avoid removing the halfshaft from the transaxle.

2) besides the four lug bolts attached to the wheel/hub assembly, there are too small holes on the disc that are threaded about 1/4 to 3/8 inches deep, and then have a flat metal surface in them. i heard that these were once set screws that attach the disc to the hub. is this true? and if so, how can they be removed? there's nothing on the surface that indicates there was ever a hex/flat/phillips/torx head surface on them. it's just flat metal... and it doens't seem like they might have rusted away.

3)
finally, has anyone taken this thing apart without use of the special pressing tools, and if so, how did you get the assembly apart?

any suggestions would be greatly appreciated... the car isn't driveable with the wheel bearing shot, and we can't afford to replace the car. at the same time, we can't afford the outrageous mechanic bill we would accumulate having the work done at a shop.

thanks for any help you all can provide.

Jim

Hello

1) if the axil is not rusted into the hub you can get it apart with out removing the halfshaft (axil) from the trans .

note : be careful not to damage the threads on the axil

2) to be honest this is not a hard job if you have the correct tools the only way i can see you saving money is to take the steering knuckle out and have a auto repair shop or machine shop press the bearing out and in .

i would call a shop i dont see this job costing more than 250 dollars and thats definatly less expensive than buying all the tools nessarry for this job