HerrKaLeun

What bearing puller kit would cover all bearings I ever need to pull on a bike? I can think of the ones in hubs and in pedals. i know there are tons of kits on amazon, but they may not have the small size required for the pedal bearings. They also seem geared towards larger bearings. Or alternatively, what size range of bearings do I need to expect? I didn't measure the pedal bearings, but they may be 5mm or so.

Andrew R Stewart 

I don't think you will find one kit/tool that does all.If for no other reason that making stuff has the need to sell and making tools for very small batch manufactures that will change designs as they see fits their benefits will never be profitable. That said the small and large bearing removal/install kits from a few tool companies do cover a good spread.

If you stay in this game long enough you will collect tools that you no longer use or find adapters that allow far more use, for a while. I have a lot of odd washers, pressure plugs, extractors and such in a few boxes from 40+ years of doing this. Recently I serviced my mill and found myself reaching into the box of bearing press bits and calling on my experience but with bigger bearings and forces to do the work. Had I bought into one "kit" and never drifted I doubt I would have had the right pressing bits to make this job go well. Andy

WizardOfBoz

For older style cup and cone bearings, you rarely replace the cup and so you only need to worry about cone and ball replacment. All you ned are cone wrenches. Maybe a screwdriver to pry a dust cover out (gently! carefully!)

If you do need to remove a pressed in cup, or a cartridge bearing, you can use a pin punch (pin punches have flat ends) to gently tap these out. You probably need to remove the end plugs first, and these vary in how they're fixed. For friction fit, you can tap the cap out from the opposite side with a pin punch. So to remove a bearing on one side of a hub, you put a pin punch in from the other side, through the axle, and make sure that the pin is catching the outer edge (the outer race) of the cartridge. Then gently tap. If you make sure to only tap on the outer edge (which is friction fit into the hub) you will preserve the bearing. A key point is to NOT allow the force of your tapping to be transmitted through the ball bearings. This can cause little dents to form in the races (called "brinnelling") and will ruin the bearing.

I have bearing pullers. Never recall using them on a bike.

Andrew R Stewart 

Cal Van and SunTour pullers are fairly common is older shops. Park has made a couple of bearing knock out tools of differing sizes, based on the classic headset cup remover. Huge Common nails or flat hear machine screws also do a nice job at grabbing the back side of the cartridge bearing in many cases. Drift punches work well if there's a clearance designed in. But in the real world of shop service it's the reinstall that gets the wrench thinking. Who cares about a shot bearing getting hammered, but the new one... Andy

cpach

I like the enduro puller: https://www.endurobearings.com/produ...lind-hole-set/.

8-32mm does the majority of things you might want to. A lot of pedal bearings can get knocked out with the axle.

A bearing puller is very frequently necessary working on modern bikes, especially full suspension MTBs.

davidad

https://wheelsmfg.com/presses-tools/...actor-set.html or buy each one as needed.

WizardOfBoz

Ok, I need an experience expert to weigh in here. The Wheelsmfg bearing pullers seem typical. You insert a stub into the ID of the bearing, then tighten the puller which squeezes out against the bearing, and then you tap the bearing out (according to the url in post 6). But if you do that, couldn't you just come in from the other side of the bearing with a pin punch at tap the thing out? Are there really designs so clueless that you cannot use a punch or a "rocket" bearing removal tool?

Mad Honk 

Wiz,
I find that a couple of Woodruff keys with a bit if steel welded to them and placed in the hub will allow you to pull most hub bearings and races. I am currently having a new set created by one of my mechanic buddies who will weld a small bit if 1/8" stock onto one Woodruff key and then do the same for the other side, and then weld the two sides together so they have a spring like action to keep them apart after inserting into the bearing race hole. Cost for the tool was 69 cents for two keys, and $1.99 for a bit of bar stock that will make four sizes of pullers. The size of the Woodruff key is determined by the bearing race size you want to pull. Similar to the old Parks tool that had two sides of a split clevis pin welded onto a spring like flat steel body.
You will need a pin punch, or drift pin to drive the bearings out from the other side of the bearing. But it is not hard to do. Smiles, MH

HerrKaLeun

thanks to everyone. I guess I will wait till I actually need to remove a bearing and take it from there.
I'm mainly thinking of hub bearings and pedal bearings.

Geekage

Well then, that's not a blind bearing, is it?

Yes, using a punch will probably get the job done, but the wobbling from side to side will deform the hole a bit. Maybe not enough to cause a problem, but then again, maybe.

Not too sure what a rocket bearing tool is. Like a stepped cylinder cut in half? That's what I use when I have access to the other side, but sometimes it slips out, so spreading the two halves becomes the creative part.

WizardOfBoz

Geekage, I guess I was wondering just where on a bike one has blind holes. It seems to me that every bearing (BB, headset, wheel hub) has a hole through to the other side.[On Edit: Pedals?)

Your point about enlarging the hole by going back and forth was a good reminder to me. Ideally one would be able to use a press to force the bearing out without wiggling. A rocket does that. Here's Park's rocket tool ("RT-1 Headset and Bottom Bracket Cup Remover") for head sets. You put it through the headset nosecone first, then when the "fins" click through you can tap on the nose:

davidad

Some radial bearing hubs have a spacer between the bearings to minimize side loads. they don't allow a tool to fit in from the other side to be able to drive out the bearing.

WizardOfBoz

Pretty much any bearing should have spacers to provide some pre-load. But it seems to me that you can have a spacer that you can knock out from one side (removing, as you do this, the bearing from the other side. The axle in the Bontrager hub sketched below shows this. A design that deliberately doesn't allow a little purchase by a punch or a bearing removal rocket seems ridiculous to me. But I must acknowledge that they exist.

Metaluna

The DT Swiss front hubs are like this. It says right in the service manual to wedge a drift into the seam between the spacer and inner race and tap it out from the opposite side.

WizardOfBoz

Metaluna, Thanks! I don't have a DT service manual (are they online?) Glad to know I was doing it correctly. I'd love to have a big enough arbor press to use slow, deliberate force to press stuff like this out. But tapping (or something jury rigged with all-thread and steel bars with holes in them) will have to work...

davidad

I have friends with recumbent trikes and the front wheel bearings spacer doesn't allow any type of tool to push out the bearing.

Metaluna

Yes they are downloadable. You have to go to their manuals page below, expand the hubs section, then download the "Hubs Technical Manual Ratchet". I'd post the direct download link for the PDF but it's a little wonky.

https://www.dtswiss.com/en/support/manuals/

It looks like only the 350 Front Thru-axle hubs (in section 4.1.5) need to be serviced with a drift. The QR versions, as well as the 240, have different axles that have different procedures.

Metaluna

Just to be clear, I wasn't taking issue with your statement. I consider the DT Swiss procedure to be kind of hacky at best. They could at least have cut some notches in the spacer to allow a blind puller to hook over the inner race. As a bonus (for them) they could sell a special tool to fit the notches. But the 350 is considered a value price point hub so it probably wasn't worth it.

davidad

Look at the picture of the front axle. It doesn't have an internal spacer, the axle has a shoulder. Once the end cap is pulled the bearing can be tapped out.

WizardOfBoz

In my wheel there is a spacer with shoulders (similar to the diagram, part number 3). And in the DT manual, it shows a kind of plug tool (a "mounting pin") that DT sells to push on one end of the axle to push it and the bearing at the other end out. The pin and the collar shown go for around 60 dollars!

Metaluna

Yeah, when I made my original comment I was only looking at the 350 thru-axle front hub, which does have a spacer apparently (if I'm reading it right). I didn't realize at the time that the other hubs (including the 350 QR version) were different.