A Bearing question

[Anonymous]

This may be a silly question but. . .

In the process of putting new tires on my 78 GS-400, I thought "hmmm, it's sat so long it might be a good idea to re-pack the wheel bearings." My various books and shop manuals all say pretty much the same thing along the lines of "just drive out the bearing and the seal with a drift pin." When I got the front wheel off, I noticed that there is a spacer in between the two bearings and for the life of me I can't find enough of a lip to catch the drift pin on. Any advice out there? Thanks,

Seth

[earlfor]

Re: A Bearing question

Those are sealed bearings. What is it you think youre going to repack? :-)

Earl

This may be a silly question but. . .

In the process of putting new tires on my 78 GS-400, I thought "hmmm, it's sat so long it might be a good idea to re-pack the wheel bearings." My various books and shop manuals all say pretty much the same thing along the lines of "just drive out the bearing and the seal with a drift pin." When I got the front wheel off, I noticed that there is a spacer in between the two bearings and for the life of me I can't find enough of a lip to catch the drift pin on. Any advice out there? Thanks,

Seth

[Anonymous]

good post Seth anyone got any tip`s???????

[mcconnell]

I can't swear what a GS400 has for front wheel bearings, but all of my Suzuki's from 1970 to 1983 had repackable bearings on the front. There is a rubber coated seal that has to be GENTLY lifted out of place with a small, worn out common screwdriver, after all the built-up crud has been removed. 'Worn out' so you don't cut the seal. The waterproof wheelbearing grease you are about to use can then be worked into the bearing. Plan on spending about 5 minutes on each bearing doing this. Then reinstall the seal and make sure it is unbent and seated. I did exactly this on my GT750 every tire change and had well over 110k miles on the original bearings and have about 70k miles on the set in my GS1100G. The original bearings on the GS were bad before the first tire change. I don't think they ever had enough of the right grease in them from the factory.

Good luck.

[Anonymous]

i dont think they are ment to be takin apart, new bearins only costs about 3$ each anyway

[Anonymous]

That leads us to the original question: how do you get the old bearings out?
I'm restoring my GS550, and the front wheel bearings have to be replaced (too much play). I haven't looked into it yet, but the microfiche tells me that there is a spacer between the bearings, so it seems hard (if not impossible) to drive them out with a drift pin, as Seth stated.

Any suggestions?

[Anonymous]

Once you've drifted those bearings out, you don't wanna be reusing them, they'll be damaged.

To get them out though for replacement, use a long sharp edged drift, and you should be able to push the spacer to 1 side enough to get a purchase on the inner race. Tap gently all round the race until you've created a little give in the spacer then you're away.......

[earlfor]

I have to go with brit on this one. I wouldnt even think about reusing old bearings, particularly if there is enough play in them or theyre making enough noise to be removing them in the first place.
Splurge for new bearings and enjoy the peace of mind. Besides, replacing them makes things easier since you dont have to worry about damaging the old ones. :-)

Earl

[quote="brit7.11"]Once you've drifted those bearings out, you don't wanna be reusing them, they'll be damaged.

[mcconnell]

I agree the bearings have to be replaced, but you have to be careful not to damage the new ones. The bearings have to be driven in equally on both sides (driving on the outer races only) until the spacer is very lightly rubbing both inner races. Spacer too loose and when the axle is tightened, the ball bearings will have too much side load on them pushing them toward each other. Spacer too tight and the balls will have too much side load on them pushing out. Either way the bearings will have a very short life. It's not a difficult job, just be careful.

[Anonymous]

well, ....

OK, thanks everybody (I guess).

I have two manuals: the original Suzuki shop manual and an aftermarket Haynes manual for the GS 400 "twins" and both manuals refer to bearing removal, repacking, and replacement.

Regardless of whether I repack or replace outright, I'm still stymied as to how to remove the bearings. I can shift the spacer "to the side" just a wee bit but I can't catch enough of the lip (even with a small diamter punch pin) to drift the bearings out. The other alternative mentioned (prying out the dust seal) is a technique I am not familiar with.

I guess I'm a bit surprised by some of the responses in that I'd have thought this would be fairly standard procedure given bikes that tend to end up in storage/disused for long periods of time. Just this weekend my son and I replace the bearings and races in his 1961 Ford Galaxie precisely because it had been stored for years. I mention this because I know about carefully driving out the races and carefully installing new ones (we even came up with a special tool that has variably sized round disks for evenly driving in races) BUT as I said in my original post, I can't figure out how to drive out these bearings on the Suzuki because of that darned spacer.

Any suggestions on where to go for new bearings and seals?

Seth

[Anonymous]

If you're going to replace the bearings don't worry about destroying the old ones. Go ahead and press on the inner race to get the bearing to move. So what if it destroys the bearing. Like the earlier post said, they're cheap. I think pressing will get it to move, pounding maybe not so good....

Once the bearing is out, if you want to make this easier for the future, take a Dremel bit and cut two tiny little cutouts in the spacer , 180 degrees apart, just big enough for your drift pin to engage the race. (I've done this before, it works well.)

[Jay B]

Heres the best bet yet for getting bearings back in when you dont have a press and dont want to pound. Get a peice of 1/2 or 5/8 inch threaded rod about a foot long. Get the washers that go with it and the nuts that go with it. At one end slide a washers and then a nut on the rod. Place your bearings and what ever else that needs to go on the wheel and hold them there by hand. Put the end of the rod thru everything and bring it out the other end being careful not to gouge the inside. Then put the other washer and nut on the rod and tighten it down till everything is snug. Just like pressing them in. Should only cost about 8 bucks and you dont have to pound on anything.

NOTE: Once in a while you can learn something from a Harley guy.

[mcconnell]

By 'prying out the dust seal' , the bearings can be packed in place. If they are in good shape, ie, roll smoothy and freely and have no excessive play, there is no need to remove them to repack them.

[Anonymous]

I has been nine months since this thread started 8O , but I thought this story might be interesting:

I remembered this topic, because replacing the front wheel bearings was one of the things I had planned to do on the GS550.

Today, I finally had the time...

I intended to order the bearings at a bike shop and assumed that it would take up to six weeks or so for them to arrive, like most parts I ever ordered :?

But I decided to take the wheel, with the bearings still in it, to a local auto parts shop first; you never know . The man at the shop looked at the number on the bearings and picked them right off the shelf 8O
It seems these are standard industrial bearings, used in lots of transmissions, from cars to washing machines 8O

I had to get the old bearings out, so I tried the drift pin method on the left bearing. After fifteen minutes of tapping, still no movement :?
I took a small torch, to heat the bearing up, and tried again. Still no movement. I decided to try the right bearing. It had heated up too and fell out after three taps! 8O
Since I had more clearance now, the left bearing was a piece of cake.... I thought. I had to use some brute "tapping" force to get it out.
Turned out that the outer race was so rusty on the outside, that it looked like it had been welded to the wheel.

I tapped the new bearings in, using a 30 mm wrench socket; fits perfectly!

Costs: 17.70 Euros.

Number on the bearings: 6302; standard roller bearing.