Wheel bearings

[ebes67]

Shucked a rear wheel bearing on the way home tonight, which made for a very interesting exit from the highway. Haven't had time to pull things apart yet, but hopefully it didn't damage the wheel or axle. Oddly enough, I just ordered a set of All Balls last week, so hopefully those show up tomorrow. I've got about 12,500 miles on the bike, which seems about normal for the OEM bearings. Looks like a trip to Harbor Freight tomorrow for a puller . . .

 

[GAXB9R]

Put em in the freezer for about 30 minutes. It is a big help.

 

[wd40oz]

I'd need a bigger freezer to fit my wheels...

 

[snrusnak]

^lol the bearings silly.

Please post back what puller you buy and if it works well, I need to do mine very soon. I hear some say the HF puller doesn't work(maybe that's just for the fronts, I don't recall...).

 

[wd40oz]

Never had any luck with pullers on wheel bearings (great on engine case bearings). The inside spacer usually prohibits the puller's fingers from getting a good hold on the bearing. It's especially difficult on wheels with dual bearings on one side. If you can heat up your hub without harming the paint, the aluminum will expand quicker than the steel race and you can bang them out from the inside. I made a driver out of 3/8 bar stock and shaped it on the end. Heat is your best friend when removing tough objects from Al. ON install, like GAXB9R said, freeze the bearings and leave your wheels out in the sun. They'll go in with ease.

 

[Dingo]

5000km rear wheel bearing[down]

 

[ebes67]

Finally had a chance to knock them out last night with the Harbor Freight blind puller. Took all of about 30 seconds and some NC17 words of encouragement, so I guess that was $45 well spent. You just need to be really careful that you're grabbing only the bearing since the bearing spacer leaves very little gap. The spacer had a gouge in it (from the bad bearings, not the puller), so I'm getting a new one of those before I press the new bearings back in. I guess I'll be down for a few more days until I find one of those . . .

 

[ebes67]

A quick thumbs up to ASB. I called Friday for a spacer. They walked me through the critical dimensions and we concluded that mine was fine. It's an inexpensive piece, but that put me back on the road Friday night rather than ~5 days later. They also had some tips for pressing the bearing in. (I was rigging up something that would have been overly complicated and he walked me through the process they published over on Badweb.) The repair took some time, mostly out of paranoia over doing it wrong, but it was pretty easy in hindsight.

 

[wd40oz]

[up][up]good job on doing that maintenance yourself. It's not the easiest thing to do. I've started them sideways before and had to bang them back out only to F up the new bearing.

 

[ebes67]

Thanks. I can definitely see where that would happen. Had I proceeded with the setup I was first attempting, it would have been ugly. Even following expert advice, the first one started to get a little out of alignment with the hub, though I don't think it was enough to hurt anything. It's a balance between tapping it just hard enough to nudge it along, but being careful not to alternately walk in each side. Also, I don't have a point of comparison, but I did freeze the bearings first and leave the wheel baking outside all day; that may have helped a bit.