Can a bearing be removed by pulling on its outer race?

Come to think of it... My bearing puller could not reach the inner race even if it wanted to :D

Just seems kind of strange that the force will not damage the bearing.

Depends on how hard you have to pull to get it off the shaft.

Last situation I had this was on a Hino truck - front wheel bearings. I had to trash the bearing to get it off. There was quite a bit of force needed to remove the inner race from the hub shaft.

IMHO, if you can get the bearing off by pulling the outer race without trashing it then it wasn't fit to the shaft properly.

Could be you're "old school"? I used to work at a place that had two fitters - one near retirement, and a young bloke. They had different views on how to fit bearings. The older fellow liked a good tight press fit, "until you can see water seep from the pores of the metal". The younger would instead use strips of abrasive cloth to make the shafts, which were about 3 inches diam, so that the inner bearing was a sliding fit. He reckoned his machines in service outlast his senior colleague's.

As a general rule of thumb, you should assume the bearing will be damaged. But bearings are (usually) cheap, so once you have taken the trouble to remove it, it probably makes sense to install a fresh one anyway.

Tried this type of puller?

jsw

Generally, I view ball bearings much like a clutch throwout bearing. For all the work to get down to that level, it just seems a good thing to replace them while I'm in there.

There are very specialized bearing pullers that will grab either the inner, or outer race, by the ball race. Transmission shops often have a decent selection according to a mechanic friend of mine. They are painfully expensive, so not many people buy them that don't need them fairly often, as they are generally specific to one bearing size.

OP might call around and see if he can find someone with such a puller that will remove his bearing.

Jon

I've advised friends to do that and they haven't always done it. A couple times, within a month, they'd have the whole tranny back out to replace either the pilot bushing or TO bearing.

Autozone loans tools like that, usually free with deposit.

-- Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed. -- Storm Jameson

Good advice, but might also be worth seeing if a bit of modest heating with a hot air gun or gas torch helps

And -- which load direction the bearing is made for. If it is a roller bearing (Timken and such), it will be pretty clear which directions it will accept loads in. With ball bearings, you have to look up the number to find out. Many are designed only for radial loads, and pulling by the outer race would likely Brinnell the surfaces (the balls would make dents, and it would fail fairly quickly). Some have deep grooves (you can identify them by a loading notch -- a notch in the inner race and one in the outer race, which have to line up to let a ball be inserted before the cage is installed and crimped in place. Those can take a respectable amount of axial load. There are angular thrust bearings, which would do quite well in one direction, and be easy to damage in the other direction.

I do remember many years ago when I was helping a friend change the bearing on one of his rear axles (Timken style roller bearings), the outer race was easy to remove. The cut loose the cage and remove the rollers, and finally spend about an hour with a bench grinder thinning down one side of the inner race. When it got thin enough, a pop with a chisel and it split on that side, and slid off with no trouble. Getting the replacement on was a lot easier -- and I didn't even know about the trick of heating it first back then. :-)

So -- how much does the proper bearing for your shaft cost? If you have to take it off anyway, putting on a new one sounds like a good idea.

Enjoy, DoN.

You've got that backwards, DoN. Deep groove bearings with loading slots have relatively low thrust capacity compared to standard (e.g., the 62xx series) deep groove bearings. Loading slot bearings are used to increase radial load capacity by maximizing the number of balls, but the notches interrupt the wall of the groove right where it's needed to carry thrust loads.

O.K. Thanks for the correction.

Enjoy, DoN.

I'll have to look into that. The pullers I'm referring to are very specialized and very expensive, and only work for one or two bearing sizes. My mechanic friend showed me a couple, to see if I was interested in trying to manufacture them. They don't look much like any garden variety puller. But if Autozone does have this type for loan, that could really save the day somewhere down the road!

Jon

The types of tools for loan varies all over the place at different Autozones, but you can hope for the best.

-- Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed. -- Storm Jameson