Reply With QuoteSoak the bearings with liquid wrench or WD40 for a few hours and then use slide hammer with bearing collet.
Have 12-13K on the wheel. Removed the wheel to replace the tire. With the wheel removed couldn't easily spin the bearings by hand. Pulled the dust seals and found the outer bearing races were heavily rusted, rotor and sprocket side).
Decided to replace them and dug out the HF blind bearing puller. Hammered and hammered on both sides, nothing moved, (bearings on the Lightning wheels pop right out). Removed the rotor and dumped a bunch of heat into the hub with two propane torches. Hammered again but nothing moved.
Anyone have any ideas?
Saw this video but don't know if its practical with my slide hammer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kvv-Cer5SXI
Soak the bearings with liquid wrench or WD40 for a few hours and then use slide hammer with bearing collet.
Last edited by TPEHAK; 09-17-2015 at 04:23 AM.
Thanks, they've been soaking overnight. We'll see what happens. I'm afraid I'll have to fab something else.
if they don't come out take a pic and post it so we can see what your dealing with. The wheels are cast aluminum, even with the bearings being rusty they shouldn't be that tight that a puller can't get them out.
a few suggestions: get a top quality penetrant fluid like kano kroil or pb-blaster and allow to wick in between outer bearing shell and hub, both sides. you have 2 choices: first is to use a quality puller and remove ROTOR side bearing first. with that bearing removed flip the wheel and let hub spacer drop out. now use a serious punch and serious mallet and punch out the pulley side bearings. to do this you want to remove both the rotor and the pulley from the wheel. make up a spacer out of wood blocks to raise wheel off floor a few inches which allows the bearings to come out of their housing. this method works like a champ but you need a serious large diameter punch and serious mallet and wear gloves.
Lol i know all about stuck bearings this is the fun I had yesterday. FB_IMG_1442515730058.jpg
Up-Date, Success! Here’s the story:
Originally Posted by TPEHAK
When I knocked off last night I put Kroil along the outer circumference of the outer race and hub on both sides. Before leaving for aquatic aerobics this morning, (best exercise for aging joints) I sprayed both sides with PB Blaster.
Quality on the Harbor Freight blind bearing puller is probably barely OK but it is definitely light duty. The hammer doesn’t have much mass and slide length is short.
-I clamped the wheel vertically in the wheel clamp on a lift table
-Measured hub lip to bearing race with a depth gage
-Started manually hammering away
-Re-measured and found zero bearing movement
-Tied a nylon tie down strap on the hammer, (similar to the you tube video)
-Hammered away, the strap dramatically increased impact force
-Re-measured, bearing moved a fraction of a mm
-Kept hammering away, it took a lot of blows before the bearing started emerging from the hub
-Even with the bearing close to half out I couldn’t get it to move by hand hammering
-Strap hammering the last half of the bearing was fairly easy
-Did the other side the same way
I deliberately slide hammered out the outer bearing on the sprocket side because I didn’t know if I could hammer two bearings out with the wheel clamped to the lift table.
I have a piece of aluminum round stock that fit the hub almost perfectly and a large ball peen. I left the tire in the clamp and started hammering with moderate force. The bearing started moving and was pretty easy to drive out.
Gnarly, fortunately mine came out in one piece.
Thanks everybody for responding. It’s always good to get suggestions and opinions when you’re dealing with an odd issue.
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