Coughed up for the SC 7900 tool, which did well to remove everything but the outer races. I could have done the same with a punch and hammer, and saved myself £32. Repeated efforts to extract the outer races have served to round off the biting edge of the tool, and several hours later have got me wondering if I’m missing a trick. Tried warming the links in the oven, degreasing the race and tool surfaces, and I’m about to throw the whole across the room in a rage now.

Anyone found another way of getting theses barstud children races out?

Not immediately helpful but a slide hammer blind bearing kit off eBay is around 30 quid and will have an end to fit the bearing races. Only other method I’ve seen work is welding to contract them

That was the idea with baking the link in the oven. And the tool is custom-made for Santa Cruz 5010 bearing removal. I may just send the link and worn out already tool back to Jungle with a ‘Disappointed of Hove’ covering letter.

:0/

Apparently this is quite normal (according to the chap I spoke to at Jungle when I first did it and had the exact same experience as you)… once the bearing has come apart you can just pull out the outer race with a pick tool – it’s quite thin and malleable. It is annoying that the purpose made tool doesn’t extract them effectively and gets damaged in the process though!

Right, so I’m not being daft. Apart from shelling out for a custom tool that does half the job. Fab. Pick tool it is over breakfast then!

Mech eng mate gave me a great tip…boiling water breaks the bond of any threadlock that may be there. I just bought a flea bay slide hammer for doing mine.

(overly smug of brighton)

chap at jungle is telling you lies, i have never ever seen an outer race that will come out with with a pick and ive changed hundreds of bearings, if they were that loose they would have come out with the inner race and balls.

I’m with B45her, I have never seen or heard of a bearing out being picked out. Extractor and puller set is required to be properly sure.

Post it to Jungle and ask for your free bearings;)

Scrumfled, which slide hammer did you end up getting?

I’d love to post it away for free bearings, but Penelope (Cruz) is third hand…

Good point b45her!

I did one a while ago without a puller to hand. I used a dremmel to very slowly grind away an area of the outer race until it was thin enough to bend in with a little screwdriver. The race then near enough fell out. Be seriously careful doing this as if it’s a carbon frame then the heat will melt the carbon a bit (so lots of water to cool after only a second or two of grinding) and if aluminium then the frame will be a lot softer than the outer race, therefore easy to cut into the frame.

Have had a similar issue on Blur, I think the same. Managed by fitting the semicircular drift into the outer race, wrapping some electrical tape around the pointy spindle of the drift and fitting it through to expand the drift more and get a better grip of the race. Apologies it I’m remembering wrong and its a different issue!

LBS

Trouble with lbs is it takes longer, and costs labour. I was going to get the sc removal tool for my bronson but this thread is making me rethink as I’ve never actually successfully removed frame bearings, even on my Superlight where I have the sc tool. Oh well, looks like the quandary continues

Was only a cheapy/shite one, but i figure it wont have a particularly hard life. Similar to:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/5pc-Inner-Bearing-Puller-Tool-Set-Blind-Hole-Tool-Slide-Hammer-Kit-Pilot-Needle-/282044010302

You’re welcome to borrow it, under the usual break/replace deal.

I’ll say this, if they’re proper jammed in they’re an arse, requiring lots of patience, care…. and knocking the shite out of whilst using every curse word you know.

Lifetime warranty on bearings and cost of tools is more than the cost of getting LBS to do it (£35 in case of mine). Depends how often you need to do them though. Anyway, if you DIY, send the old ones back to get free bearings.

Though the 5010, it’s worth considering just buying a new link as they’re cheap and include the bearings (though I had one warranty replaced and it didn’t come with the seals so shop had to get them separately. Not sure if that was just a mistake. Though depends on the condition of the existing seals).

I was told by stif/jungle that free bearings were limited to the original owner (which sounded reasonable)…. is that not the case?

I also have to use the hammer blind bearing tool and it works well. I did need to soak the bearing cup in WD40 beforehand. I had to use that tool to remove some bearing cup seized in my Hope hub as well, so you might use it for other job eventually.

To help us, all SC has to do is to groove a small slit in the cups of their link to slide a screwdriver and lift the bearing out. Not difficult surely.

Well b45her and wrecker you’re welcome to your opinions but that’s exactly how I did it! Once the bearings and inner race are gone you can bend the outer race inwards with a pick so that it comes out. I used this technique on the small upper link bearings (which are the ones prone to falling apart when using the extraction tool) – I guess that the larger lower link bearings may have thicker races which won’t be so easily persuaded.

Cheers you lot. All good info. Actually, just remembered that it was indeed Mr Dremel we used to turn to in desperation in my lbs spannering days. Been wanting an excuse to buy one for ages!

But yes, imho, I wouldn’t recommend the Santa Cruz bearing tool. You can knock out the inner races and balls with a hammer and punch – £S cheaper!

scrumfled – Member 
I was told by stif/jungle that free bearings were limited to the original owner (which sounded reasonable)…. is that not the case?

Good point. Yes I think they are. They ask for proof of purchase and the bearings (think a photo of the knackered bearings will do).

Yes I had to pay £35 fitting for new bearings in my Tallboy frame as I bought it 2nd hand.

I’ve never had a problem using the SC extractor on my Blur. It makes a potentially difficult job very easy indeed.

First time I did mine with the proper tool they all came our dead easy. Second time I was left with all the outers in. Quick touch with a welder and they all fell out.

Update on my experience as gone through another set on the 5010 in very little time, though one destroyed itself and wrecked the axle in use, but anyway.

So this time grabbed the free bearings and decide to get the official tool and do it myself. Read about baking the link in the oven. Take the rubber stop off, bake at 250 (I assume F, so 120ish C), for 20 mins.

The tool knocked out one okay. All the rest fell apart and now stuck outer.

That’s okay Santa Cruz say, flip the tool and you can take the outer off. Yeah right.

“should come right out” say the instructions 😆

https://www.santacruzbicycles.com/files/frames/bearing_overhaul_2.pdf

Universal bearing press
Universal bearing puller
works for me.

Would that work removing the outer race (having destroyed the bearing)?

and what makes those sets any different from the almost identical ones costing £100s? or are they going to fall apart after first use?

The blind puller does grip outer races from collapsed bearings and with a socket set for spacers the universal kit pushes them in.
For not a lot of money, useful bearing tools for a wide range of bikes.

Have you tried the star angle nut on a threaded bolt trick yet?

Thread a star nut onto a threaded bolt, tap through from one side of the stuck race then hammer out from the other. Recommended to me by the guys at Jungle when I did the same thing with the bearings on my Butcher and it worked a treat

Hmm. I just may have a spare star nut somewhere.

Can you hydraulic it out? Fill the hole and behind with grease. Put in a very close fitting drift down the centre and tap it in. The grease should force out the bearing. Works on gearboxes with blind bearings so should work here.

I have a 2010 Tallboy and pretty much change the bearings every season (I do use it quite a lot). The team at Jungle have been spot-on with their advise to me over the years, but I do agree that the official tool is not perfect and once a bearing fell apart in its housing and I had to make my own tool for a bit of fancy extraction. The bike is on its second set of links/pivots now and is good for a few more years. I do tend to grease it more than I used to – if the assembly is FULL of grease, there is no room for water, so everything lasts longer. Just my thoughts.

@Wally – You’re a star! 😀

Took about 10 minutes with those extractor tools to get the outer races out.

vs half a day and failing completely with the official Santa Cruz tool.

The only thing the SC tool is good for is getting the inner race out. The design of the bearings seems to be neither type of extractor get the whole bearing out, rather the bearings just disintegrate.

Anyway, job done. Cheap Chinese set, and does the job. Thanks 🙂

For anyone doing this in future, I can also recommend using this semi-blind extractor: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/131982076375
(The chap makes them himself to order and they are more or less made for extracting this sort of bearing). I’ve never bothered with the official tool as this is cheaper and, frankly, easier.

The other thing that makes all of the difference is heat – warm the aluminium mount up to 100C (i.e. pour a kettle of water on it) and the bearings come out with a couple of gentle taps, usually intact too. You can use a torch too, but its easy to overheat and a kettle is easier to steal from the kitchen when noone is looking 🙂

Oh, and use a smear of lithium grease when pressing the new ones in so you can get them out easier next time.

I’ve done piles of them this way and haven’t had a stuck bearing yet.

Glad to be of service.

Holy thread resurrection!

Just wanted to say thanks to Ally G, I used the star fangled nut trick on the pivot bearings on my Heckler and they popped right out 😀. Was genuinely surprised they came out as easily as they did, had already mentally prepared myself for a long day of swearing!

No worries – glad it worked for you. I seem to recall feeling a similar level of despair myself prior to getting them out

I had the same issue on the same linkage this week, I managed to remove the outer races without extra tools (normal bearing extractor and a hammer), no cutting or heat etc. I’ve used my own technique on lots of bearings that have fallen apart with 100% success.

You basically need to reassemble the bearings with less balls so you can reinsert the inner race (I think it was about 4 or 5 on those bearings). Also, those specific bearings fail because the inner race has a shoulder for the balls on one side and a tiny snap ring on the other, which takes the load when pushing them out!

-Small amount of grease inside outer race to keep balls in place when fitted.
-Install about 4or5 balls together at one side of the race
-Insert inner race and hold it in place (lipped edge nearest the inside of the linkage!)
-Carefully push\rotate the balls around the circumference so they are all equally spaced.
-Drift bearing out as normal

Here is an example of a hub bearing after I used this technique to remove it.