Driving the inner hub race (1 Viewer)

[Darwood]

Hey all,

I need some help with driving my inner hub bearing race. I'm not sure how I can drive it far enough so that it sits against the perch that it there for it in the hub. I'm using a brass drift to do it and the ledges are just so small that the drift just doesn't want to stay when I hit it. Any advice on how to drive these races?

The outer race was no problem at all.

 

[Koffer]

cut the old race like a split washer and use that to drive the new race in . The cut will help you get the old one out when it the new one drove home .
HTH some

 

[Riley]

Derek -

I found this a little tricky as well. Cutting the old race is a good idea but that steel is tougher than nails.

I found that if I cut a little bit of the end of the brass drift in order to get a new sharp end then it worked much better. After using the drift for the first part of the project, the end gets pretty rounded and makes the job pretty tough.

I think with a sharp edge, it will go pretty good for you.

Good luck.

Riley

 

[theferg]

I used two old bearing races to get it all the way in. Put the new one in as far as I could, then one old one on top of it in the same direction (so I could tap it back out by it's lip from the other side), tapped that one in as far as I could, then placed a second old race on that one, but this time upside down so I had a nice flat edge to tap on instead of the skinny side. Once all the way in, used my brass drift to tap on the fat edge of the second race from the other side and both of them came right out. That was on the deep side of the hub anyways. For the not as deep side, I only had to use one old race on top of the new one--put in the same direction again so I could tap it back out from the other side by the lip of the fatside of the old race. Just be sure you think about it for a sec if you try it like this cause if you start hammering them in without a way to tap it backout you'll be in big trouble.

Here's a quick rendition of what I'm talking about (if this works). The blue is the hub body and the red are the bearing races.


| ||-/--------\-|| |
| ||/ \|| |
| | | |
| ||\ /|| |
| ||_\____/_|| |
| | | |
| ||\ /|| |
| ||_\____/_|| |


-Ferg-

 

[Darwood]

Good ideas all.

Just got back from driving the races in. I wound up using Riley's idea, but instead of the brass drift I switched to an aluminum punch. the end was smaller and it was easier to re-sharpen it with a dremil.

I didn't want to ruin the old races since they still may be good for spares. I haven't checked them out yet since I'm tired of cleaning and I have fresh clean bearings to put in.

Thanks again for the fast responses.

 

[Big_Moose]

Derek

All are good idea's - just make sure you don't get the old race stuck!

A brass drift should not be used to drive / seat the bearing races.
Use a steel punch / drift to seat the bearing races.

Joe

 

[IdahoDoug]

Joe,

I've always used the brass to seat them. Is it not a good idea because you may not get them all the way seated like steel will? Thanks.

DougM

 

[cruiserdan]

I guess it would not be fair to state that I always use the OEM SST driver set to install my bearing races.

Our club members have benefitted on numerous occasions from the "keys in my pocket".

D-

 

[Riley]

Or perhaps all the brass chips that are left lying around and a little hard to clean out??

-R

 

[Big_Moose]

Doug

The brass drift is used when you want to protect the "struck" object, since the brass is softer it will generally deform before the struck object. In addition the brass drift doesn't transfer the "Full" energy of the strike.

The steel drift will transfer the power better for a more solid strike since it won't deform like brass. You are tapping on top of the race with the hard steel drift / punch, which will seat the bearing race better.

Also you will be able to hear / feel the race when it is seated better with the steel punch over the brass.

Of course, CDan has a nice steel punch with a matching diameter of the bearing race!

Joe

 

[Rich]

Make life easy and just buy a bearing driver kit. They don't cost much. http://www.thetoolwarehouse.net/shop/LIS-12980.html

 

[theferg]

Do you have that set? Does it work for the Land Cruiser bearing races? I'm just a little leary because Cruiser stuff is all metric and I would hate to get standard crap that didn't work. ???

-Ferg-

 

[Rich]

I don't have that set. I have a set I bought years ago from Snap On for $20 to service a large boat trailer. The web site lists the sizes that come in the pictured set. Somebody might measure the LC bearings and seals and report back. I don't know what the bearing size is. The size of the driver does not need to be exact to work. It needs to have a smaller outer diameter then the bearing race or seal, but still be larger than the inner diameter of the race or seal.

 

[theferg]

So the driver wouldn't have to be an *exact* size...that makes sense. Anybody got a couple bearing races handy?

-Ferg-

 

[semlin]

seating these races was hard on Riley's truck but not hard on mine. I guess it varies. The brass drift did the job, and you can hear the change in tone when they seat.

I suspect you could use the old smaller races from the knuckle bearings in a pinch.