In a separate thread where I talked about spacers; one of the fellows who replied mentioned that the bearings in his hub were loose and could be removed without the use of tools. Not a good situation! The body of a bearing is designed to remain stationary while the inner hub (which rides on the steel balls within the bearing assembly) is supposed to do all the rotating. If the body of the bearing does not remain stationary; it too will eventually begin to rotate. The result being a wearing out of the inner diameter of your hub and a premature failure of the entire bearing. However, there is a simple trick that a lot of us "old-timers" use to snug up a bearing in a hub. It is not an ideal fix but it's 100% better than a sloppy fit between a bearing and a hub. Take a small chisel and make six to ten dimples around the inner surface of your hub. Make them pretty deep. Then go ahead and press your bearing in. I've attached a few pictures to illustrate what I'm describing. Hope this helps. Ogy
In extreme cases where the bearing pocket is completely beat out it's still possible to save the wheel by boring it out and pressing in a sleeve.
I like to leave a couple thou. press fit and coat the outside of the steel sleeve with Loctite Bearing Retaining Compound before pressing it in. Then I chuck it back in the lathe and face it off flush. If you are using a flange type bearing the repair will not be visible. In many cases the steel sleeve will make an aluminum or magnesium wheel "better than new".
I like to leave a couple thou. press fit and coat the outside of the steel sleeve with Loctite Bearing Retaining Compound before pressing it in. Then I chuck it back in the lathe and face it off flush. If you are using a flange type bearing the repair will not be visible. In many cases the steel sleeve will make an aluminum or magnesium wheel "better than new".
Excellent tip KKK. Thirty minutes and a couple of dollars saves you throwing away an otherwise perfectly good aluminum wheel. Gotta love this hints & kinks section. We old dudes can finally share some of that knowledge we gleaned from reading all those old Mechanics Illustrated and Popular Mechanics magazines back in the 1950's. Keep em coming. Ogy
