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Hi

I am stripping my rear wheel, cast alloy, drum brake, off an early 3.5 K. Well to be honest, I am attempting to strip it prior to blasting and powder coating. There seems to be a tube running between the two bearings on either side of the wheel, I have tentatively tried to remove this by drifting it with an old (correct size) socket and mallet but nothing seems to be happening. Is there a technique, or should I just use more muscle and a bigger hammer?

Any thoughts appreciated.

Wingnut

Is this any help ?
Is it part 23 you are trying to remove ? Does not look to be held in with anything.

You really need to get someone to turn up a drift for you.

If you just use a socket or piece of round bar, you'll burr over the end of the spacer and have difficulty putting the bearings back in, or getting the spindle through.

The drift should have a pilot diameter that's a close but sliding fit, the shoulder should be good and square and the outer diameter sould be a sliding fit in the bearing.

Support the hub on a block of wood (with a hole!), ideally on the bearing housing. Give the drift a good solid blow with a decent size hammer (at least a 2lb club). The spacer should have moved, as should the bearing on the opposite side. Three or four good solid blows should have the spacer and one bearing out. Drive the spacer out of the bearing and throw the bearing away (unless like me you use them as parallels on the milling machine). Remove the other bearing and throw it away too.

When you come to install new bearings, use sealed ones (2RS or 2RSR suffix) and ignore the metal shield. Make sure the bearing housings have no burrs and install one bearing. Apply pressure to the OUTER race or both, NEVER just the inner. A couple of thick washers and a length of allthread will work. Press the spacer part way into the other bearing (make sure it's square). Get the end of the spacer started into the bearing already in the wheel and draw it in using the washers and allthread. Make sure everything stays square and give the bearing a little tap if it starts to tilt. Take your time and sort problems out before you damage the housing.

Thanks for the assistance, yes it is part 23, I will get a proper drift made up and give it another go, I did not realise that it would be pushing the bearing out on the other side. I have bought some new bearings for the reassembly and she should be as good as new soon.

Thanks again

Try pouring boiling water over the part of the wheel casting surrounding the bearing that you want to remove. It will make the bearing come out much easier when it's tapped.

squared off a socket to use as a drift and tried the boiling water trick, one good hit and it came out fine.

will make up a drift when I get a chance as there is much less chance of damaging the part in future.

Thanks for the advice

A quick thank you to all the comments here and a confirmation that when I made a suitable small drift I was able to easily remove the internal spacer which also came out with one of the bearings. The design of the internal centre of the cast rear wheel (with a sort of rounded off triangle cut out) made the second bearing trivial to remove at this point.

The rear wheel's design makes it far easier than removing the front wheel's bearings which took several hours to remove even though I was using a bearing puller amongst other tools and techniques (e.g. boiling water, using a long punch, various expensive lubricants, and so on). For the front wheel I finally ended up collapsing one of the bearings and removing the ball bearings from that bearing which then enabled me to remove the spacer, etc.