My electrolysis de-rusting setup is working well, but I can't decide whether to dunk my Sierra front hubs all in one go.

I can see that water is going to get in because the sealed cap is removed. During the 'dunking' this shouldn't be a problem because rusting doesn't take place while the voltage applied.

BUT will the bearing grease (lithium?) hold water in afterwards that won't/can't be dryed out? The bearings run fine at the moment and I dont want to ruin them.

If it's possible to strip the hub apart and reasemble them then I may do that. Is it only the cost of the grease thats involved? and what is it?

Hopefully that makes scence and one of you nice chaps can help.

Cheers, Steve

No driven hubs from either front or rear are easliy taken apart, any manual (eg. Haynes) can tell you how to do it.

For a seirra you will need a good vice and a large soket for the hub nut. not sure of size of hub nut cos haynes manual doesn't say.

As for grease Machine Mart general purpose lithiam grease cost a £1.99 for a 400g tube (plenty for doing hub bearings several time over).

Thanks for that, I'll strip them apart then and get some grease tomorrow.

socket is 41mm
breaker bar is a strong one
extension is a scaffolding pipe
retighten to about 300 Nm iirc

you will of course be putting new nylocs on wont you

I would have thought there is more risk to damaging the bearings during dis-assembly than there is from leaving complete.

Can the bearings be sealed off in any way. I know this wont be 100% but could minimise the effects of the water entering the bearing (silicon bead around where rotating hub meets the upright etc).

new bearings are a tenner a side from halfords, HWB324

if you're gonna strip em, change em. you get new grease seals and new nuts then.

hth
tom

Damager to bearings when removing them? From what i onderstand about electrolicis rust removal, you can leave in items like the outer races and they won't get damaged.

you must strip them down
if a current is pased from the outer to the inear of a bearing it will pit the bearing surface where each roller touches.
its just not worth the risk and stick some new bearings in cus the nut is a nyloc and will be no good when you have taken it of
cheers dave

I mean remove the inner race and rollers/cage leaving the outer race behind. The old thing in contact with the outer race is the upright around it.

Then do the electrolysis.

If the bearing is worn out then the outer race will ahve to come out any way, but if the bearings good then why risk damage when removing the outer race.

Oh dear what've I got my self into here!

I have attempted to strip my hubs (following Haynes) but it hasn't all gone to plan. I think I may have ruined my hub carrier and/or drive flange.

Anyway its not all doom and gloom, I can learn a lot from this ........ I just have LOTS of questions now!

Trying (struggling) to remove the first outer bearing I think I was too rough and did this (see pic) - No damage to bearing though.

The 'slight' damage doesnt raise the bearing face at all so i would think this OK?

The 'Major' damage obviously has (a fraction of a mm). Could it grind this back with a dremmel type tool to level it or is it just fit for the bin now?

I learn't from this and removed the second fine with out and damage.
Rescued attachment HubCarrierDamage.jpg

I cannot for the life of me remove the outer bearing inner race from the drive flange. It seems to be stuck solid.

Iv been trying to drive a sharp wedge into the joint to knock them appart, but in doing so have caused yet more damage Is this terminal? I think this was caused by careless lining up of the point rather than the method as it diddn't happen till i'd tryed bashing it about a million times.

The question is what is the correct way so I don't damage another one?
Rescued attachment DriveFlangeDamage.jpg

Probably not the best way to go about it!

Don't worry though- someone on here will have a cunning plan.

If they don't then if I was in your position I would consider running a bead of weld around the top of the bearing. Bit like the way you remove rear Sierra bearing outers.
Other than that, you could try cutting into the bearing (carefully!!!!) with a dremel or similar and then cracking it at this point.

I've never had to do either of the above so I don't speak from experience!

Cheers,
James

EDIT: As for the damage- I'd have thought you'll be ok. Get a small rat-tail file and take off any raised metal.

[Edited on 24/2/05 by James]

The damage to the upright looks like its not a problem, dremmel etc. to remove any burrs.

With a problem like a bearing stuck on a shaft, there are four possible solutions that come to mind.

1 use a 2/3 leg pulley

2 heat the bearing with oxy-acetyline torch, spreand the heat evenly over bearing, then knock the bearing out

3 drive a chisel in between the back of the bearing ant the hub, keep finding a bigger chiesl as the beraing is moved allon the shaft (the idea is to use the taper of the chiesl, not the point).

4 All out warfare, destroy the bearing properly either a 9" angle grinder (with both cutting and grinding, cos just grinding will take forever) or oxy-acetyline with cutting torch.
You might get on better (the shaft stands a better chance of servival) if you use a 4.5" grinder, but by this stage i would have spent 3/4 hours swearing at the bearing and all patiance is long since gone. This means that i can tell you from experiance that small/shallow scraches shouldn't do the shaft any harm.

start by cutting the outer cage off, and removing all the rollers.

from there, you want to be looking at using a decent bearing puller (the one with 2 semicircle bits that bolt round the bottom of the bearing), or a 2/3 leg puller.
a bit of heat from a propane blow torch should suffice, as long as you keep the shaft cool.

in practice, i have never seen a bearing stick to the shaft like that, on a sierra, but speak from reconditioning a supra diff.

make sure that you haven't knocked the bearing out of square on the shaft with the chiselling, as that won't help either

hth
tom

This sounds good advice.
But if still stuck then grind a flat on the bearing nearly all the way through.If you are carefull and use a 4.5 inch grinder it is possible to be quite precise and not damage the shaft.When nearly through the bearing will start to blue with the heat warning you that you are nearly to the shaft.
then try the pullers again. If all else fails grind at two points opposite each other and split with a chisel.
If your careful any shaft damage will be minimal and will be ok dressed up with a file and emery cloth.
I always remove tight bearings this way ,as it is easier and quicker than other methods and less likely to cause damage if you carefull.
Paul

quote:

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Originally posted by indykid
start by cutting the outer cage off, and removing all the rollers.

from there, you want to be looking at using a decent bearing puller (the one with 2 semicircle bits that bolt round the bottom of the bearing), or a 2/3 leg puller.
a bit of heat from a propane blow torch should suffice, as long as you keep the shaft cool.

in practice, i have never seen a bearing stick to the shaft like that, on a sierra, but speak from reconditioning a supra diff.

make sure that you haven't knocked the bearing out of square on the shaft with the chiselling, as that won't help either

hth
tom

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Mine were stuck solid at first and in a far worst condition that those. First the cage was removed. Inner race outside edge is easily visible. Hub held firm in vive, bearing punch and big hammer used to push the race off the shaft. At first its not so easy as there not much to locate on, but ad it starts to move it gets easier.

The bearing punch was a facom item - basically just a hardened shaft with a hand grip at one end.
Careful brute force got mine off. (admittedly my mate did them who is a LandRover mechanic so used to this type of thing)

Well this is encouraging, you've given me loads of things to try there and no irreparable damaged caused by the sounds of it.

I'm away as of tonight for a long family weekend, but will be eager to give this another bash (litteraly) early next week.

Cheers guys, what would I do without you lot!

-Steve-

quote:

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Originally posted by Steve&Steve
Cheers guys, what would I do without you lot!

-Steve-

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