Aluminum for Bearing Race driver

[great white]

I’ve even used mild steel before. Not a problem for bearing races, fine for seal drivers too. You just have to pay attention to what you are doing when using them on seals and build your sizes precisely.

this was a quick throw together when I needed a driver for the main seal on the wife’s mini cooper. Crappy location to work in so I needed a long driving rod on it:







Worked great!

Sits in the bottom drawer of my box where I keep all my “diy” tools.

 

[D.sebens]

I’ve even used mild steel before. Not a problem for bearing races, fine for seal drivers too. You just have to pay attention to what you are doing when using them on seals and build your sizes precisely.

this was a quick throw together when I needed a driver for the main seal on the wife’s mini cooper. Crappy location to work in so I needed a long driving rod on it:

View attachment 459020

View attachment 459018

View attachment 459019

Worked great!

Sits in the bottom drawer of my box where I keep all my “diy” tools.

I made the same one for my mini except I used the bolt and threads to pull the installer against the engine instead of hammer.

 

[Jake M]

Thank you folks, I do appreciate this (seemingly) trivial information.... There's gonna be a good slug of "something" showing up soon. I realize that between a few of you it's a big range of stuff..... But it's not that complicated, and one of those is gonna work I'm sure.

 

[great white]

I made the same one for my mini except I used the bolt and threads to pull the installer against the engine instead of hammer.

Whatever works says I!


I used a driver because I also cut a pop bottle to slip tightly over the crank snout so the seal had a nice, smooth surface to run over to minimize the risk of damaging it.

 

[deakin]

Wish I had my lathe when I turned wrenches, would have had a custom set of race drivers that actually fit.......

been there

 

[homebrewed]

I replaced the bearings on my mini lathe and was concerned about damaging the new bearings when I pressed them into place. I was able to make some pieces to drive the bearings into place without putting any force in the wrong place so it didn't matter what material I used for the drive pieces. In some cases the force might need to be applied to the inner race, sometimes to the outer -- depending on the job at hand. My project was to install angular contact bearings, which come in separate pieces so I had to deal with both situations.

Maybe you can, too. It all depends on your particular job, and if you can fabricate the pieces to do it. In my case, the job was right at the limits of my mini lathe (I made the pieces _before_ I tore the lathe down).

Where there's a will there usually is a way.