I'm looking to swap out the rear bearings, from which i detected a slight rumble.
Hopefully I can get the hub off, as I know Dean struggled. Assuming that I can, is there anything special to watch out for upon disassembly? I'm even thinking that it might be easier to remove the brake plates and pull the whole de Dion out, if the old races are hard to drift out.
You will find the hub assemblies the very devil to dismantle. There's an exploded diagram in the back of the handbook, for your amusement.
The outer nuts are usually very tight, and the taper is even tighter. Think in terms of taking the de-dion out and finding somewhere friendly with a BIG press tool.
But before you do this, spend some time (and potentially) a lot of beer tokens) investigating replacement bearings and seals.
Finally, for cheapskates, clear out the grease nipples and keep blowing clean grease through, and spinning the wheel until the grease coming out is clear. Hopefully by then any tightness, grit and grumbles will have subsided.
Both Duncan and I have found wear on the outer thrust washer, and replacing this tightens things up, annd regreasing and avoids a major rebuild.
That's sort of what i expected. The diagram in the handbook makes it look oh-so easy, at least for getting everything bar the tapers out. I grabbed some bearing sets recently when I found a good price (and yes I got the 2523-S), so that I was ready just in case.
Just because you have the bearings doesn't mean you have to fit them, and if the press tool fails at first attempt you will need to use lots of heat to free things up, by which point the bearings/seals will be scrap anyway.
To be honest these bearings are so big that I'd be amazed if yours was worn, unless it's done mega-miles, or never had any fresh grease.
If you have any end play in the bearing, it's really worth just taking the outer nuts off to check the state of the thrust washers. The nuts will be difficult, they are whitworth, and split pinned, but will surrender to a breaker bar and scaffold pole if you are lucky. Otherwise the local lorry tyre depot will have an impact wrench that should shift things.
If it all goes pear-shaped, I know that Eric de Vries made himself some replacement shafts, and can probably offer more detailed advice.
also I found if you can get enough heat directly onto the flange in a very short time period, with the whole thing under emmense puller pressure and then **** the end of the puller with a very large hammer it usually "pops" open. but I must stress you need very hot localised heat to get the expansion you need.
Thanks, Nigel. I recently invested in an electric impact wrench and a stronger hub puller, and I hope that will help if needed.
I think the tell-tales on the hub tubes must be blocked or covered as I can't see them, or at least they're not in the same location as the manual shows.
