Rear drive needle bearing and swing arm restoration

[docc]

"Swing arm Restoration?"

[gstallons]

You don't have a slide hammer to remove them ?

 Surely a m/cycle shop or garage can remove/install them for you .

[Bjorn]

Im not really convinced a inner bearing puller suitable for the 17mm inner dia. Will extract this massive bearing. Since the much smaller needle bearing of the bevelbox did not even budge after using a inner bearing puller (as displayed on page 2). The used spindle can handle around 3 tons according the specs.

[AndyH]

I took mine to a local gent who had slide hammers, all the kit, the lot and in the end it took grinding, heating and pure brute force to extract them. The one on the shaft side was, by far, the worst to get out. He said he couldn't recall a worse bearing extraction job and he wasn't a young man. Those bearings are very wide: a lot of friction to overcome and in a blind hole too. Shame they're so short lived.

 

I have a spare swing arm too. Just a thought: if I get started now, I might have the bearings out of that one and the lot re-coated in time for when the bearings in the current one go kaput!

[Bjorn]

I took mine to a local gent who had slide hammers, all the kit, the lot and in the end it took grinding, heating and pure brute force to extract them. The one on the shaft side was, by far, the worst to get out. He said he couldn't recall a worse bearing extraction job and he wasn't a young man. Those bearings are very wide: a lot of friction to overcome and in a blind hole too. Shame they're so short lived.

 

I have a spare swing arm too. Just a thought: if I get started now, I might have the bearings out of that one and the lot re-coated in time for when the bearings in the current one go kaput!

Haha, sounds like a walk in the park

 

I changed the plan a bit. I bought some high strength M16 bolts (12.9). I will try to weld these onto the inner bearing race and use it as a puller. At work i found a suitable piece of steel which i will mill down in order to act as a support to pull out the bearings. I hope either the bearing comes out (with or without heat) or the inner race will break. In the last case this allows me to weld the outer race and remove it.

 

 

Pictures of the complete set-up will follow (soon I hope )

 

 

***to a moderator: can u change the title of this topic into ''Rear drive needle bearing and swing arm restoration'' ? Thanks.

[Bjorn]

O yeah I almost forgot. Curious as i was, i did opened the bevelbox in order to inspect the lot . It did not look to bad. The crown and pinion do not show any signs of abnormal wear (as far as I can judge). The seals looks ok. The pinion does not seem to have a lot of axial play (max 0,5mm bye eye). Just some rust on the exposed parts which i will try to clean up.

 

Since I always find pictures helpful, here are some:

 

[gstallons]

Things looked good until the last picture ....

[docc]

***to a moderator: can u change the title of this topic into ''Rear drive needle bearing and swing arm restoration'' ? Thanks.

 

Titled changed . . .

[Bjorn]

I dont think this is abnormal, since there are no seals on either the left and right side of the axel, water and dirt will eventually reach these uncoated parts. I already cleared most of the rust. As long as the material contacting the seal is unaffected im not really concerned. Ideally you want to coat these parts, but i think this was to expensive...

[emry]

 

I took mine to a local gent who had slide hammers, all the kit, the lot and in the end it took grinding, heating and pure brute force to extract them. The one on the shaft side was, by far, the worst to get out. He said he couldn't recall a worse bearing extraction job and he wasn't a young man. Those bearings are very wide: a lot of friction to overcome and in a blind hole too. Shame they're so short lived.

 

I have a spare swing arm too. Just a thought: if I get started now, I might have the bearings out of that one and the lot re-coated in time for when the bearings in the current one go kaput!

Haha, sounds like a walk in the park

 

I changed the plan a bit. I bought some high strength M16 bolts (12.9). I will try to weld these onto the inner bearing race and use it as a puller. At work i found a suitable piece of steel which i will mill down in order to act as a support to pull out the bearings. I hope either the bearing comes out (with or without heat) or the inner race will break. In the last case this allows me to weld the outer race and remove it.

 

 

Pictures of the complete set-up will follow (soon I hope )

 

 

***to a moderator: can u change the title of this topic into ''Rear drive needle bearing and swing arm restoration'' ? Thanks.

 

Something I have done with blind hole bearings in the past was to fill the cavity with grease and then use a bolt (with the threads cut off) or steel dowel that fits as snug as possible with the ID of the inner race. Smack the bolt with a big hammer. The force is transferred through the grease and pushes the bearing out. I haven't tried it in this application though. 

[AndyH]

Something I have done with blind hole bearings in the past was to fill the cavity with grease and then use a bolt (with the threads cut off) or steel dowel that fits as snug as possible with the ID of the inner race. Smack the bolt with a big hammer. The force is transferred through the grease and pushes the bearing out. I haven't tried it in this application though.

 

That would be a whole tub of grease on the long side of the swing arm... ha ha!

[luhbo]

That's been the fun part so far. Now check pos. 22 and 14. These bearings, mostly 22, are the only things that tend to fail inside there, on some bikes at least. If you decide to look after them they might keep you busy 'till spring.

 

 

Hubert

[emry]

 

Something I have done with blind hole bearings in the past was to fill the cavity with grease and then use a bolt (with the threads cut off) or steel dowel that fits as snug as possible with the ID of the inner race. Smack the bolt with a big hammer. The force is transferred through the grease and pushes the bearing out. I haven't tried it in this application though.

That would be a whole tub of grease on the long side of the swing arm... ha ha!

 

Ah yeah, thanks Andy, I get it now. When I think of a blind hole, the bearing sits right on back surface. That only takes a little grease, pretty common in Japanese transmissions.  I didn't realize that the "blind" is way down where the shaft passes though. Nevermind, carry on as usual.

 

If I was faced with this I would pry out the seal, use a TIG torch with no filler to melt a few spots in the outer race (in between the ball bearings) then a slide hammer it out. I have yet to run into a bearing that didn't pop right out with that treatment.

[Bjorn]

That's been the fun part so far. Now check pos. 22 and 14. These bearings, mostly 22, are the only things that tend to fail inside there, on some bikes at least. If you decide to look after them they might keep you busy 'till spring.

 

(picture)

 

Hubert

 

Hi Hubert,

 

I did see some nasty pictures somewhere on the forum. However as far as I can remember this phenomenon was usually combined with abnormal axial play of the pinion (if im not mistaken). Please correct me if im wrong on this. In my case I did not observed a lot of axial play, max 0,5mm by eye. 

 

Maybe I will put in on the maintenance list of next year  . I would need to make a tool in order to remove the big castle nut anyways

[luhbo]

It's radial play at the pinion tip. Not to be confused with a loose enddrive housing. Depending on the state of the outer needle bearing (the rusty one) sometimes the complete enddrive dangles to and fro.

 

Hubert