Not seen much on this board about front wheel bushings other than they are one unit and expensive (oh, go figure!) Know a shop will do it for around $300 parts & labor, with half of that for the part.

My question is : Are they really tough to replace yourself? My old Volvo mechanic told me its not too tough, but he typically uses a wheel puller to get the thing off. Thats usually not too big a deal, but since I find it hard to find Volvo 850 manuals, I have no picts to see what all has to be removed that might cause me problems.

Ok, who's got the experience?

if you need a manual I can sell you mine cheap as my mother totalled the car. Let me know, it is very detailed and I did a lot of reading just to know how the car worked. It is a Chilton Manual for 850 and 70 series.

How much do you want for the manual & do you have any parts rom the car for sale ?

Hello, I just did one of these last weekend. I did my drivers side hub and lower
ball joint. It was a sinch. You will need a few things : A T20 Star bit, and the
normal other hand tools with metric sockets. You will also need a really adjustable wrench for the driveshaft nut ( it's big ). Here's the basic steps:
Remove tire, remover brake caliper and hang it with a piece of wire from the strut spring ( so the rubber brake line doesn't get kinked or damaged ), remove
the small rod that has a nut on it that sticks out ( it's in between two of the
holes for the lugnuts )( it also holds the rotor on ), once this is off, remove
rotor. Then, remove the large nut. Next, undo the lower ball joint and strut.
Lastly, there are four Star bolts thold the assembly on, and a plug for the speed sensor you need to unplug. Undo all of this, and slide the hub assembly
off the end. The strut will want to jump around, so be aware it will want to
twist about. This is the quick steps, but it's way easy. It took me maybe 25 minutes from start to finish, but I did have air tools. Let me know if any of this helps. Thanks, Ryan

Thats exactly what I wanted to hear. Knew there was a sensor for the ABS on there and since I have not bought the bearing yet or gotten into the wheel, didnt know if that sensor or the ring would also cause me grief. I have pulled many a rotor and done bearings on my other Volvos (144, 245) and have sufficent tools and skill. Just know that MY projects always take five times the normal because of annoying issues that should not be there. Trying to minimize them on this one.

As for the other replies to my post asking about symptoms, here's mine. There is slight more vibration in the steering wheel, plus there is more noise coming from the one side of the car which is similar to the road noise from the tires. Course, recently I had the turbo replaced and some of the ABS at which time the shop said, "Sounds like you have a front wheel bearing going out...". Guess I cheated on this diagnosis... :P

Thanks for all the quick replies. Going to "suck it up" and "go for it" myself. If you don't see any panic posts from me on here, you will know I conquered the beast.

What were the symptoms causing you to replace the wheel bearing? I have a pulsing noise coming from the driver front wheel that's been getting worse.

I had the exact same thing. Pulsing noise caused by dried out / wore out bearing. Mine would actually make a little differnt noise ( louder ), when
you'd turn hard to the left or right ( Speed didn't matter ). If you want
to double check it, buy the wheel hub assembly ( I paid $ 143.00 at a local
Volvo dealer ), take it all apart, and spin the hub bearing - mine sounded
really dry and you could tell the bearing was not smooth. If your's is for
sure bad, use your new part. Mine started going out at 79K miles, but I let
it go until it got louder and louder. You finally just have to do it.

Good luck.
Ryan