Left front wheel humming

[skyerunner]

So the little beast has developed a humming in the left front wheel. It is accentuated when I turn right (body rolls and shifts weight to the left side) and decreases when it is less weighted. I suspect it to be a wheel bearing, and was wondering if folks have some advice about replacing front wheel bearing and what special tools I might need. I've found some writeups about rear wheel bearings and was wondering if there were significant differences.
Cheers,
Jon

[xirdneh]

generally if the left bearing is going bad it will make the most noise when making a right turn
and the reverse for the right
you can go a long ways on a bearing that is making noise
it will continue to get louder till its annoying
Sdoan did a write up on on this site for doing the bearing yourself

i prefer to remove the hub and take it apart (remove old bearing)
and take it to a machine shop to have them install the new bearing and seals
locally they charge 40.00
i have been ordering the bearing and seals (two per side..inner and outer) from Rockauto
price for bearing has been as low as 18.00 (wholesale closeout) at Rockauto
local parts stores want as much as 60.00

[Petros]

What is it humming? could your record it perhaps and post it here so perhaps we might recognize the tune?

Could be wheel bearing, jack the wheel up and see if there is any play in the bearing when you push and pull sideways on the wheel. Also if you remove the wheel and caliper you can rotate the front hub by hand and feel if it turns smoothly.

Small chance it could be the CV joint, but not likely.

There is a thread on replacing the bearing yourself in the repair guides section. Really helps to have a press rather than beating the bearing out. ONe thing I did was remove the strut from the car and took it to a repair shop and paid them just to press out the old bearing and press in the new one. Proper equipment makes the difference between the job taking a few minutes, or hours, and risk damaged parts.

[shogun]

also the humming could come from bad seals in the bearing, grease gets out humidity and salt get in and starts humming, happened to me after a time i went to the beach often, boiled the bearing in 30w oil repacked it with bearing grease and was fine, no scuff marks or anything.