Tapered roller bearing insert removal

Do any of you know how to remove these. I have new bearings. The old inserts are not damaged. It is okay to fit the new bearings in the old race inserts if they cannot be removed?

 

You will need a long drift, or a sacrificial flat-bladed screwdriver. The races should not be reused unless you have no other choice, as any wear on the races will increase the rate of wear on the new rollers.
Tap them out the same way that the original ball bearing races were removed, tap them out from the back.

 

Put new races in the freezer for a couple of hours and heat up tube with a heat gun , makes putting races in much easier.

 

Does anyone know what kind of grease Yamaha used on original wheel bearings ?

 

The problem I have at the moment is that the top race lip is nearly flush with the inner frame tube. I will try what @Jetfixer and @k-moe stated but for the top one is there an expanding puller I could use like a blind bearing puller. That might work. The bottom one has openings at the front and rear of the frame tube. I need to get a suitable steel bar to catch in those openings so I can hit the back and front of the race.


Has anyone used one of these?

 

They would have been sealed bearings. Don't know what grease they used.

 

High speed wheel bearing grease (usually dyed red).

 

If you can't get a straight punch to purchase on the edge of the bearing, a puller won't do it..
Get a welder and run a bead or two inside the bearing. Let it cool and tap it out. Easy.

 

Cheers Minimutly I can get a stick welder to try that.

 

I believe that Len at XJ 4 EVER sells a tool to remove race ?

 

I have a welder now to get it out but thanks for the information.

 

I just used a long tapered drift to knock our old races .

 

Is that the tapered ones or were the original ones ball races?

 

They were the original ball type races .

 

Cheers Jetfixer, I will go back to this, I am trying to repair my base pickup just now one of my magnets broke . I am getting a signal from the broken one and the good one when I pass steel bar over them. As long as the voltages going to the TCI are the same it should be fine.

 

Has anyone ever successfully changed the steering head bearings on an 85/86 XJ700 that originally came with roller bearings? There is an inner race pressed onto the triple tree and an outer race pressed into the steering head.

I tried to removed the races from a junk frame. Absolutely no luck. I'm not happy with the steering on my XJ700N, so since new bearings aren't all that expensive I figured I would just get a new set from @chacal and call it good. So I happened to have a junk frame to give the removal a test run, and so far no joy.

 

Did Len have a tool for that procedure ?

 

750 machine this might help.

 

I've replaced the ball bearings in the steering head of my XJ650J - those were a bear to get out, but it was do-able. The XJ700 bearings seem to be a lot more difficult. I've ordered an OTC steering head bearing remover to get a grip on the outer races that are inside the steering head, and a bearing splitter to get a grip on the inner race that is pressed on the triple tree. I will let you know how it goes when I get them and give it another try.

 

I ground down the inner race on the triple tree carefully with my bench grinder after removing the cage and rollers. Inner race was easy to remove then.

 

Top Tip: When you've finally removed the inner race, slot a pair of opposed notches in its seat so that next time you can get a long drift into the base of the next race you want to remove. Assuming you keep the bike long enough. The makers used to do this, and made it a lot easier for the poor mug who was working on it.

 

Update - here are the results of trying to remove the bearing races from my XJ700N parts bike:

Triple tree lower inner race bearing: I tried a bearing splitter, but the only place to get a grip on the race was the lower lip, and it just broke the lower lip off. I then did as @Franz suggested, and carefully ground through the race. Once it got pretty thin I was able to get it off. The thin ground down part of the race cracked, and that allowed it to pop off. Here is a (no so good) picture:


Outer race in the upper steering head tube: This one came out pretty easy with the OTC steering head bearing removal tool:


Outer race in the lower steering head tube: The OTC tool didn't work on this one. There was no place for it to "grab" onto the race. There are a couple of notches above the bearing to allow you to get a punch in there (circled in picture). I bought a 14" bearing punch. I had to modify the punch a little bit to make it work. The end had to be ground perfectly flat with a sharp edge to get a good grip on the bearing. I also had to grind a little notch out of the punch so that it got as close to the outside of the race as possible:


Here is a better look at the notch I made in the punch:


Conclusion - I think I almost know what I'm doing now and could replace the steering head bearings on my XJ700N.

 

Just to close the loop on what happed to the XJ700N steering head bearings.

After all that figuring out how to remove the bearings and races, it turns out the bearings were not worn out. No surprise on a bike with 17,xxx miles.

When I took it apart, it was "lubed" with some sticky nasty goo. I don't know if it was OEM sticky nasty goo or some sticky nasty goo that was put there as part of some maintenance, but it was sticky nasty goo. May have been grease at some point, I don't know.

At any rate, I cleaned up the bearings and re-lubricated them with fresh grease. It rides really nice now.

The symptoms that made me think the bearings might be shot were a weird hard-to-get-off-center feeling like with worn out ball bearings, and some buzz/rattle coming from the steering head.