Bearing stuck to pivot bolt hack

Following my bearing change thread I just thought I would share this in case it helps anyone else. I’m sure others have found different ways to do this but I think this will be my go to method for the future.

While removing one of the pivot bolts the bearing was stuck so hard to the bolt it extracted the bearing from the linkage. Bolt head is bigger than the O.D. of the bearing so no chance of knocking it down the thread and it’s stuck pretty tight. First fruitless course of action was to clamp the bearing in the vice with the bolt threads uppermost and attempt to whack the bolt out with a plastic faced mallet bearing in mind it’s a fairly soft alloy bolt and I want to re-use it so try not to damage it. Anyway that was a complete waste of time as all I succeded in doing was knocking the whole lot out of the vice jaws.

So, to have another attempt I really wound the pressure up on the vice which proved to be a good move as it shattered the outer race of the bearing so I was left with just the inner race stuck to the bolt. At this stage there wasn’t enough room under my vice jaws to accomodate the head of the bolt to have another go at whacking it out but I’m pretty sure that would have been a pointless exercise anyway. I could have taken the dremmel to it but thought there was too much risk of cutting into the bolt so I put it back into the vice bolt head side up to see if I could twist the bolt free. No chance, the vice jaws couldn’t bite into the hardened steel so it just spun in the vice. So I took it to the bench grinder and ground a flat on each side of the inner race. Worked a treat, could grip it properly in the vice now and get some proper force on it to get the bolt twisting. Kept twisting it for a while until it started to feel like it was loosening up and then got a lever under the bolt head to apply upward force while twisting. Job done, bolt out intact and unscarred.

Hope that helps someone and feel free to tell me there are much easier ways than that to do it.

Lay the bolt head down in the vice, bearing resting on the jaws (doesn’t need to be tight). Put a nut on the threads to protect them (don’t thread it all the way on) then hammer that with a proper hammer. If the bolt and bearing are too close together, put two pieces of flat bar perpendicular to the vice jaws, and rest the bearing on them instead.

At this stage there wasn’t enough room under my vice jaws to accomodate the head of the bolt

All vices I can remember using, the jaw is wider than the body so you can clamp something as tall as your room provided it’s not thick.

Given the different metals involved wouldn’t heat/cold be the easiest and least risky approach to this problem? (admittedly less fun than using a big hammer)

Lay the bolt head down in the vice, bearing resting on the jaws (doesn’t need to be tight). Put a nut on the threads to protect them (don’t thread it all the way on) then hammer that with a proper hammer. If the bolt and bearing are too close together, put two pieces of flat bar perpendicular to the vice jaws, and rest the bearing on them instead.

The bearing was tight up to the head of the bolt with no gap and the bolt head was wider than the bearing O.D. so can’t se how that would work unless I am missundersatnding?

At this stage there wasn’t enough room under my vice jaws to accomodate the head of the bolt
All vices I can remember using, the jaw is wider than the body so you can clamp something as tall as your room provided it’s not thick.

As above re. bolt head the underside of the jaws was catching the bolt head before the jaws could reach the inner race. Not a vertical clearance issue.

Given the different metals involved wouldn’t heat/cold be the easiest and least risky approach to this problem?

Possibly but I have no source of cold.

Freezer. Might work on its own, but if not apply the heat to the bearing race after some time in the freezer.

But your way worked, and all working methods need filing away.

But your way worked, and all working methods need filing away.

Indeed! Just for clarity in case it was lost in that lengthy ramble at the top I won’t be repeating all of those steps again, they were part of the learning process. I would go straight to shatter outer race, grind flats on the inner race and twist it out.

I get the heat/cold idea and have used it myself on vehicles and as you said, cold alone may have worked but as for heating a steel inner race wrapped around an ally bolt…………

The bearing was tight up to the head of the bolt with no gap

Gotcha, this is a key piece of information. Then no.

Mods! Lifetime ban needed for use of the word ‘hack’ in a title.