| Author | Message | ||
     Thump4fun |
Had my wheel off to clean up the rotor during my brake pad change and noticed when I checked the bearings they are noticably notchy (spinning wheel with fingers in hub). Ordered new bearings and spacer from Al and then took out the handy dandy service manual -- only to find all these specialized tools for removing and installing the front bearings. Crap. This obviously isn't the same as my steel car wheels, with a hammer/mallet, screwdriver and some blocks of wood. I've Googled BadWeb and found various bits of advice, and I have the bearings in the freezer prepping to pop in...but really not sure how best to proceed. There's even a post by Al that has some great information on the "why" to do it right (no hammer and wood block) but I really don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on specialized tools to do something only 2-3x in the bike's life. I was hoping to just run down to AutoZone for a free rental tool to extract the bearings and then press them in, but it looks like the universal tool may not work on our wheels? Any suggestions from those who've done this themselves? | ||
| Glitch |
Only thing I have to offer is, this didn't work   | ||
| Natexlh1000 |
Are you sure they're bad? I say this because they can feel bad if not on the correct axle set to the correct torque. I would suggest popping off the seals with a dental pick and giving them a look-see. My X1 gave me a false failure and I looked in there only to find clean blue grease and nothing wrong. In my case, I found it was the spacer flopping around in between the bearings making it feel weird. | ||
| Thump4fun |
Glitch - LMAO!!! Natex - I appreciate the suggestion, but I'm familiar with the issue of crushing the spacer and I don't believe that's it. Only myself and another trusted Bueller have ever removed or re-installed the wheel since it was new, and always with the proper torquing technique. But even it is the spacer and not the bearings themselves, since I'm replacing both bearings and spacer my question remains the same. To add a little more perspective, I've been experiencing an ever increasing pulsation at braking this riding season. The typical solution of changing pads (which were needed), cleaning the rotor and properly bedding a new set of Lyndall Gold pads only reduced the pulsation by about 50%. Checked the front isolator mount and although it didn't look torn I replaced it anyway. Of course, that ended up not to be it (so I now have a good used one for the future). Tightened (and subsequently loosened) the primary chain. Now found this notchines in the bearings so I figure that's next...and hopefully resolves the remainder of the issue. So back to the original question -- how best to remove and reinstall the bearings out along with the spacer? Thanks. | ||
| Ducbsa |
I'd heat the hub with a heat gun and use a pilot bearing puller with a slide hammer. | ||
| Brumbear |
I just used a chisel to gouge out the spacer and then a punch to knock it out took a little caution but it worked. A slide hammer works if you can catch the lip of the bearing | ||
| Djohnk |
I bought one of these from Harbor Freight: http://www.harborfreight.com/blind-hole-bearing-pu ller-95987.html It worked great on the rear bearings. They really don't care if you take them back, but I decided to keep mine. Also, I tried removing the bearings without heat and they wouldn't budge. I applied heat to the rims with a hair dryer (I don't have a heat gun ... its on the list) and the bearings almost fell out. | ||
| Thump4fun |
There seems to be a pretty large consensus around the board for just heating the hub and using a center bearing pulley after all. Since it's supposed to be 108 degrees tomorrow shouldn't be too hard getting the hub nice and hot with some additional heat from a 1800 watt hair dryer. What about pressing the new bearings back in place? Is freezing the bearings and heating the hub back up good enough to press them in evenly? Should I freeze the spacer in advance too? | ||
| Ourdee |
I just put silver anti-seize on them and pressed them in. | ||
| No_rice |
i bought this setup to get them out and it works fine. then just a long piece of 3/4 inch all thread with appropriate size washers and nuts. squeeze it together... or i just run to work and use the hd tool made for it... or a press... http://www.harborfreight.com/blind-hole-bearing-pu ller-95987.html | ||
| Thump4fun |
I picked up the loaner center bearing puller from Auto Zone which is pretty similar to the Harbor Freight tool. Except...the bearings fall exactly in between two of the expansion tools! I ended up having to do the old school hammer and chisel method to knock the bearings out. Then a block of wood and mallet to pound in the new bearings. Really not happy with myself for resorting to that, but I was beginning to get frustrated...and what's done is done. I then rode it for about 50 miles and of course it didn't fix the original issue of my pulsating front brake at all. Grrrr.... New EBR rotor shipped and if that doesn't do it, then I'll rebuild the caliper. After that...let's just say it damn well be fixed by then. | ||
| Kowpow225 |
check your steering head bearings too. | ||
| Thump4fun |
Thanks for the suggestion, but the steering head bearings were actually the second thing I checked, after the primary chain. Loosened and then re-torqued to spec. Tightened up by about 1/3" but didn't make any difference. New EBR rotor showed up 2 days ago but no chance to swap it in yet. Hopefully tonight or tomorrow. If there's still an issue I'll open a new thread explaining the issue and everything I've done so far. Don't want to hijack my own thread and confuse the issue for anyone searching in the future.  |
