Main Bearing Removal

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Thanks for the replies chaps. I'll have a look around here and see if I can find any.
 
RennieK said:
rvich said:
Looks to me like we need to go play at Rennie's house!
HA, I'm afraid you'd all get bored pretty quick around here.

I was thinking we should have a raffle to win a week at Jim's or Ken's or CNW. Then there's Ludwig and Weal Norton too but the airfare would cost. I have holidays coming up and was also thinking wouldn't it be great to spend 10 days or so with a bunch of us at cozmoz's garage since it would be big enough. We could all bring a cylinder head or a crank or something. It'd be kinda like the movie "City Slickers" where Billy Crystal and his buddies go to a working dude ranch for their holidays.

Colorado is beautiful but I would absolutely love to hang at that shop in the old factory in NYC. If I can't live the dream, at least i could share in it for a short time.
 
Matt Spencer said:
10 / 10 .

The thing to watch , particularly with the wedges or something improvised , is bottoming it against the mainshaft , and raiseing welts , bruises , and Stress Raisers / surface imperfections .
particularly on the radius from the face to the shaft . Any edges raised should be dressed flat / smooth before fitting bearings .
Good info Matt, I didn't want to elaborate about the shoulder because my post was long enough already but you have to be careful with the shoulder on the crank cheek that the bearing butts up to. It is about .090" below the bearing inner race so it could look like a dark wide gap. You need to keep the flat side of the wedge against the bearing and the side with the beveled tip, flat on the crank cheek so you don't cut into the shoulder. Even with the bearing splitter you should watch it. I shaved a big strip off mine but I was able to fix it up perfectly in photoshop. (just kidding)

Main Bearing Removal


Next photo shows the wedge position. Some wedges are pin sharp (at first) so you need to watch carefully where you start them.

Main Bearing Removal


Once you get it moving it gets easier. You can stack wedges too (one each direction to keep it level) or put something behind them.
 
I confess to using a wood chisel to start getting mine off and ended up nicking that shoulder. It would probably be best if you used not a sharp one to start with until you get the inner off far enough to see the shoulder. I dressed mine up as best as I could so the new inner race would sit flat on the shoulder. I got the idea from Mick's dvd, unfortunately he didn't mention the shoulder.

Dave
69S
 
I'm sure a few scrapes on the shoulder aren't the end of the world as long as nothing sticks up above .030 and prevents the bearing from sitting fully home. The real danger is what Matt mentioned about any marking at the base of the shoulder where it meets the shaft and the important radius is.


pvisseriii said:
Colorado is beautiful but I would absolutely love to hang at that shop in the old factory in NYC. If I can't live the dream, at least i could share in it for a short time.

Yeah for sure, there are some real beauties coming together there.

What I was thinking from my involvement with photography and video, I always appreciated the annual conventions (think annual Norton rally) and seminars but best were workshops where you got real working experience. Top photographers would hold "hands on" workshops limited to 10 - 20 photographers and you would spend several days shooting young 19 year old women dressed in underwear or other photographic discipline. The PPofA (Professional Photographers of America) had their own training facility where for $1500.00 or so you spent up to 5 days in intensive training in medical, architectural, illustration, etc. etc. photography workshops. Something along those lines where 10 or so of us an-tied up $1000.00 ea. for a 4 -5 day workshop where we all brought a piece of out own to work on. 3 guys might want to redo the worn threads on their heads so they paid the base rate and a fee for the parts required. 3 other guys might want to install Kibblewhite valves, guides, springs etc and set them up with new valve seats and they paid base rate plus parts. Other guys might want to port and polish and flow test their heads. In the 5 days we'd all get to see and participate in all these processes plus leave with our own repairs. Money well spent on a relaxing holiday.
 
Sorry to dig this old thread up again but since the removal of the outer races from the cases was not covered I thought I'd demonstrate my Ukrainian Recipe to this common technique.

First bake the case for 5 min at 175' - 200' in the oven. The manual recommends using a soft flame but I find the oven heats it up nice and evenly.



Main Bearing Removal



Next, as you swing the hot case out of the oven, stop at the freezer and grab a handful of ice cubes.

Main Bearing Removal



Whaaat.... there's no ice cubes!!! Dam, I guess I just don't use ice cubes enough anymore, they appear to have evaporated! The tray is completely empty! Holy crap! what to do now.... Jeeze, look at those frozen perogies spilt out of the bag like that.


As it turns out, Aunt Polly Brand Perogies are the exact fit to the circumference of the outer bearing races. Two frozen perogies cover the bearing perfectly.



Main Bearing Removal



After a couple of minutes, rotating the perogies fairly consistently and wearing thick gloves, turn the hot case over and wrap it down firmly on a wood block until the bearing races fall out.

(Hint: if you leave a trace of engine oil on the bearings the perogies won't stick and there won't be much of a mess to deal with later if you plan to reuse the bearings).

 
I put mine in a bar-b-que to remove my main bearings, and all I did was place it upside down and the bearing fell out. Wait for the bang, then remove from BBQ!!!
 
You can't be eating those 2 oily perogies but the roll of Kolbassa sausage in the freezer goes nicely with those perogies bursting out of the bag.If noticed early they would not have suffered from freezer burn as a freezer is an extremely dry enviroment that makes water disappear like the non existant icecubes in that tray. Blueberrys for desert ,a good source of antioxidents,yum.The inner race still resides on the crankend though.
 
One last idea regarding the wedges to get the bearing race off the crank.
Try fabbing up an alloy wedge. It should be strong enough to hammer in between the crank and the bearing and get the bearing to move, but soft enough not to damage the crank. It works well on aircraft (I hope no one from the quality dept. is reading :mrgreen: ).

Webby

PS those perogies would taste good with a little motor oil, I'd eat them :)
 
Sorry guys, the perogies were goolash after I was done. The bearings sure spun quietly when packed with potato and cheese though. By the way the Kolbassa was the real deal, flown in from Winnipeg, unobtainium in these parts.

The whole last post was a rehash of the actual experience I had a couple weeks ago when I removed the bearings. When a buddy popped over the other day we were bs-ing in the garage and I told him about the scenario. He cracked right up with the thought of it all so I thought I'd share the experience here too.

I like the idea of having some softer alloy wedges too. That link also lists some brass ones:

http://www.rcttools.com/catalog/wedges/ ... ing-wedges
 
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