How to Remove Blind Bearings with a wet Paper Towel

[bstanga]

Got a bearing in a blind hole to remove?

[DIYer]

Thanks bstanga! We've added your Blind Bearing Removal Method to our Miscellaneous category,
as well as to your builder page: bstanga's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

Blind Bearing Removal Method by bstanga

tags: bearing, disassembly

[Toolmaker51]

A favorite combination; useful hack, logical steps, humble surprise, with proof of results. And humor in the issue of bearing packed with paper towel. Hydraulics! Later it'll be when the designated household engineer is missing half roll of paper towels.
Point out repair of that #3 or #4 taper live center would buy maybe 10 cases.

Way back in reloading odd cartridges, we'd pop out Berdan primers with water and a close-fitting punch. Again, Hydraulics!
Imagine this; what if Archimedes, Michelangelo, and Industrial Age inventors had youtube...

[bstanga]

A favorite combination; useful hack, logical steps, humble surprise, with proof of results. And humor in the issue of bearing packed with paper towel. Hydraulics! Later it'll be when the designated household engineer is missing half roll of paper towels.
Point out repair of that #3 or #4 taper live center would buy maybe 10 cases.

Way back in reloading odd cartridges, we'd pop out Berdan primers with water and a close-fitting punch. Again, Hydraulics!
Imagine this; what if Archimedes, Michelangelo, and Industrial Age inventors had youtube...

Thanks for the kind words toolmaker51, that's why I love this site great feedback and tons of good content..
All the best
Brian

[Frank S]

Back when I was running a Battalion Motor Pool While we were on a field readiness exercise a clutch went out on 1 of the vehicles I assigned 2 of what I thought to be qualified mechanics to replace it, A young sp4 came to me with what he thought was a severe problem the Pilot bearing had seized. When you are in the field you cannot carry the full complement of special tools you would normally be able to check from the tool room, so not having Special tool # bla bla bla bla, he couldn't figure out how to remove the bearing from the counter bore of the crankshaft.
Bring me the new bearing I told him. I took a look at it then said I need 1 of the sections of the tent pole from your shelter half and a grease gun plus the hammer from your tool box.
A few pump of grease insert the blunt end of the tent pole and a good hard rap with the hammer. out came the bearing. Simple matter of Hydraulics like TM51 stated. Something I thought he should have learned in his MOS training, but after thinking about it, it wasn't taught there. I had learned the trick from my Dad

[Toolmaker51]

Oh, I'm sure it was taught; just the young Spec4 hadn't truly realized theory and recognized potential mechanics. It's real hard to get out of the box imposed by A & C schools. Uniform means a lot more than field gear or what I hauled around in a seabag.
After watching the youtube, I analyzed paper reduced volume, with likely increase of direct pressure, with advantage of 'sealing' the bearing and unknown broken races. Pop!

[Frank S]

TM51 there is that about the possibility of broken races. reducing a paper towel or tissue paper to a near pulp state or a thick slurry packing that in as tightly as possible then inserting any object to serve as a piston then striking the piston. Like you say POP.
The same could be said for using sugary molasses or peanut butter
there is one thing that I will never forget when I was taking one of my secondary MOS courses. On or about our first day the instructor held up a torque wrench then asked if there was anyone who thought they were a mechanic in the group. Several held up their hands. He then asked what the tool was he was holding. Only 3 or 4 us us still had our hands up. I must have made a gesture of being bored or something that made him call me out.
Well I've never seen one like you have with a dial on it but you have a torque wrench which is used to determine if you have a bolt or nut tightened to the proper specs if you don't have one you can get nearly the same results with a 24 inch breakover bar and a 75 lb fish scale by hooking the scale on the end of the break over bar and pulling on the scale until you read the number on the indicator but you have to multiply the number by 2 because the bar is 2 ft long. He called me a smart azz and made sure to try and trip me up throughout the course. Being my Father's son really paid off but also Being the son of a retired Gunnery Sgt and my big mouth got me into just as much trouble as well.

[Jerry4Truth]

Thanks for that bit of 'hope I don't have to use knowledge' I think after a few tries I would have took a torch and did a quick heating of the unit, not too much as I would not wont to have hot grease or even water squirting in my face, just enough to give a little expansion to it.

[Ed Weldon]

Pretty clever. Thinking about this I'm recalling somewhere reading about how the paper towel makers have been changing the mix of materials to include fine filaments that add substantially to the wet strength of the towel. I think this is the key to it all. When sufficiently packed into the confined space the wet towel material essentially solidifies sealing the insides of the ball bearing and turning it into a piston of sorts. You can't do this with plain grease or any other true liquid material that will simply be forced past the bearing shields (or seals as the case might be) by the "hydraulic pressure" created by the hammer blows and the high pressure shock wave that they produce.
The bottom line here is that a combination of knowledge of basic physics and strength of materials is critically important to the skill development of all mechanical technicians and not just the engineering types (like me). Not that tribal knowledge isn't important. But an understanding of underlying science can save a lot of trial and error.

[Toolmaker51]

Pretty clever. The bottom line here is that a combination of knowledge of basic physics and strength of materials is critically important to the skill development of all mechanical technicians and not just the engineering types (like me). Not that tribal knowledge isn't important. But an understanding of underlying science can save a lot of trial and error.

And decent aim with a deadblow hammer!