Bearing Puller Warning

[MustangMike]

I used my HF bearing puller for the first time today on the 034 crank. It is the first time I have split a case and removed bearings. The flywheel side bearing was fully in tact, and came off uneventfully.

On the clutch side, only the inside race remained, and it looked like it had moved close to the crank, not giving much, if any, space to insert the remover, but I put it on any way. I was getting the claimshell part of the puller fairly tight and the bearing was not moving, so I plugged in my heat gun and warmed it up a bit.

I'm embarrassed to say that when I did this, I pointed the stupid thing right at me. Luckily, when I got done with the heat gun I spun it in the other direction and continued to tighten the nuts. The damn race shot off like a bullet, and a piece of it even broke off and ricochet around the garage.

Lucky for me, it was pointing away from me. So my advice, (lesson learned, and I got lucky), always wear proper eye protections when removing bearings, and always keep it pointed away from you in case yours "shoots off" like mine did.

I lucked out guys, so I hope no one else makes the same mistake I made.

 

[Mark71gtx]

Thanks for looking out. Not everyone wants to admit mistakes. It is imperative that we bring up things like this to keep each other safe. Kudos.

 

[Lee H]

I know a guy very well who lost an eye back in the 70's cuz of a piece of bearing
shot off into his eye. He went to the hospital and they cleaned his eye. 3 days later
his parents notice his eye water looked rusty. he went back to the hospital and they
then found a piece of steel embeded in his eye. It wes to late. A few years later he
had to have it removed and now has a glass eye.

 

[Mattyo]

Good post Mike...stupid things happen...even when you are being careful. Those pressed on races are under tension. ..so they have a tendency to fly in all directions....

 

[Basher]

If anyone has a mig welder, run a couple beads on an inner race stuck on a crank and it will literally fall right off, same goes for an outer race stuck in a case, a light tap or slap the case down hard on the bench, bearing race will usually fall out.

 

[Mattyo]

The mig welder for a stuck inner race makes sense...

But if you heat up a stuck outer race...it will expand and make it more stuck...no?

 

[MustangMike]

Heat the case.

 

[DrewUth]

Always always always use heat when pressing bearings in or out of aluminum or magnesium. The softer metal can gall and be deformed easily if the bearing is just muscled in. A little bit of heat is all it takes, and some grease never hurts as well. If the grease starts cracklin' and smoking you have it too hot. Just warm enough for the grease to start to "melt" and run is just right.

 

[Basher]

The mig welder for a stuck inner race makes sense...

But if you heat up a stuck outer race...it will expand and make it more stuck...no?

Weld it and let it cool, seems they shrink but it works. I used to weld a washer that I ground to fit nicely inside the race then could place a drift on the washer and tap out the race but found if a bead was applied just to the race itself and let that cool the race would literally fall out. If one could just heat the case and not heat the race then that would work, but some machinist friends have access to liquid nitrogen and they can quench just the race in a heated case and have it fall out.

 

[RIDE-RED 350r]

Thanks for sharing...

When I was a teenager, you know, invincible...I was trying to remove a flywheel from a snowmobile engine with a 3-jawed puller. Had that thing smoked down for all I could, smacked the pusher bolt head with a hammer and nothing would give. I leaned in for a closer look to see if something was somehow catching and at that exact moment the puller let go of the flywheel. It came off with alot of force and hit me square in the face, bridging my eye socket with some part of it. I was almost knocked unconscious, hurt like hell and of course being the invincible teenager I was at the time, no safety glasses.... Hard lesson that day!

 

[MustangMike]

Thankfully, we both escaped from any serious injury.