missing bearing

A real puzzler; I lost a bearing.

The front axle on my Kawasaki 3-wheeler has 2 ball bearings, about

5.8"ID and 1 3/8" OD. I noticed some scraping sounds, and when I took the axle out I found the left bearing in good shape and the right bearing completely GONE! No inner race, No outer race, no balls, no cage, no seals, no snap ring. It looked like I had forgot to install the bearing.

History; after many years, about last year I Noticed trouble in the front axle of my 84 Kawasaki 3-wheeler. The Right inner ring was still there but the outer ring was cracked and fell apart when I removed it. I replaced both bearings and expected it to last another 20 years.

But I had an early & complete failure. What could have caused the complete bearing to disappear? All I could ever find was a small amount of waht looked like magnetic filings inside the axle housing.

Greetings:

Had something similar happen to the splines on a front 4wd truck axle. This may be analogous to your situation; no chunks or other visible damage, just a void. In my truck, the not-hardened 17-spline axle has a hardened locking hub piece installed. A circular clip broke, allowing the hardened piece to batter the non-hardened piece as a result of normal suspension compression and extension. The result was that, within a short time, the hardened piece reduced the battered area to a fine metal dust suspended within the grease packed into the assembly. The axle appeared almost polished where the splines were missing, in other words, it didn't look damaged. There were no chunks of metal, and no dents, scratches, scoring, or other easily visible damage. Only by disassembling the other side, and comparing the two, did I notice that there were about 0.750 inch of splines turned off. I deposited metal using TIG, chucked in a 16" lathe, and used #32 Versamil with dividing head and shaping attachment to recut splines. Axle works fine now.

Regards, Jim Brown