Hi all!
I just would like to inform you how to put some extra life in a squeaking bearing according to subject.
It all started when I heard a squeaking sound that did get more and more noisy.
The ball bearing was not totalty shut, I could sense a small play though (I released the drive belt for this).
The workshops do not replace the ballbearing, they do replace the whole unit. Very costly.
There must be a way to put some extra life in the bearing without having to replace it immediately.
Yes, there is
. In fact, I did not have to disassemble the viscous heater in order to access the bearing
!
The bearing is a sealed AC type, 35BD5222DUM 18A (double ball ring).
The trick was to loosen the coupler plate, i.e. have something that prevent it from turning when you try to loosen the screw.
Tools used:
- Ratchet with a 10 mm hexagon socket
- two flat screwdrivers (or one flat screw driver and one circlip pryer for outer circlip)
- an inspection mirror (a small mirror mounted on a telescopic stick)
- needle hook
- magneto stick (you need it for the things you drop down the engine bay, I promise)
- led torch
- small brush, 5 mm wide tip.
Have high quality grease available. I used CRC superadhesive bearing grease.
Steps:
1) Loosen the drive belt (15 mm nut on the spring pulley)
2) Place the ratchet with the 10 mm socket on the couplerplate nut.
Place the screwdriver with one end on the lifting hook on the engine front and the flat end on a rivet on the coupler plate.
This will prevent the coupler plate from turning when you turn the ratchet.
3) Turn the ratchet counterclockwise in order to loosen the screw. You do not need much tourqe to loosen it.
The plate is fixed on a splined axle and it is quite easy to pry out.
4) With the coupler plate away, you will see a circlip in front of the bearing that you need to pry out.
The flat screw driver works for this too. I used two screwdrivers, one to keep the pried out away from falling back
and the other one to pry out the ring a bit more. A circlip pryer would do the job better, but I did not have one.
5) With the circlip away, you know need to pry out the bearing seal.
Here the inspection mirror, led torch and a sharp needle type hook are very much handy.
Pry out the seal gently from its outer end. It will pop out.
6) With the bearing seal away, you can now access the bearing balls directly.
Push in grease with the brush. Turn the pulley at the same time in order to distribute the grease evenly.
Now, reverse the steps.
This took me about 3 hours to do this, including a lot of cursing (dropping nuts, circlip, bearing seal down the engine bay etc etc), coffe break in order to calm down and try again until done.
It all ended very happily, the squeaking was effectively silenced and I could calmly plan for a proper bearing replacement later on.
Evidence in this postimage.org album:
https://postimg.org/gallery/1b26vvo7y/Image of the repacked bearing:
Best Regards
KalleXX
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