I bought new wheel bearings today for my ranger with D-35 front spindles. The parts guy told me that the inner and outer bearings are the same size. When I tried to install the inner bearings they won't fit all the way over the spindle. Should the inner bearing be larger?

Thanks for your help

 

This is an old thread with no replies , but the same thing happened to me. Actually, the inner bearing probably disintegrated, leaving part of the old bearing still on the spindle shaft. Question: does somebody have a trick to getting the inner portion of the bearing off of the shaft? I have tried heating the portion of the bearing that remains on the shaft but not for a long period of time. A pipe wrench will not move the old bearing.

The vehicle is a 1993 ford ranger 4WD with manual hubs and a Dana 35 front axle.

Any help would be appreciated. Thank You.

 

Are you referring to the inner race of the bearing remaining on the shaft?

 

Yes, hdgapeach, that is correct. I pulled the spindle off and tried heating again, but for a longer period of time, but to no avail. I'm thinking it might be easier to replace the spindle?

 

There is a couple or three ways you can manipulate that inner race off. The steel the race is made of is extremely brittle due to its hardness. You can actually break the race by using a sharp chisel and a good sized hammer. I would hold the chisel with a pair of channel locks or vise grip pliers to avoid whacking your hand. Most of the time it only takes a few healthy whacks with the hammer to shatter the race. I hold the chisel parallel to the ground (and spindle) with the cutting side pointing toward the engine with the edge resting on the side of the race. That position will help keep you from gouging the spindle if the chisel slips off the race. I stand and straddle the spindle with my rear end facing the fender and use a two pound hammer and swing down. Less fatigue that way. Second method involves the hammer and chisel but also includes an air/electric grinder with a cutting disc to cut one or more relief grooves in the race before whacking it with the hammer. Third method involves an air chisel with or without the grinder. Just depends on your tool inventory. I will demand that you do wear long sleved/long legged clothes, gloves, and a face shield with safety glasses. When that race breaks, the little fragments are little bullits that will cut, pierce, injur, blind, or kill you. I've also seen them heated with a torch red hot and then pounded off. I don't use that method cause I can't be sure the spindle isn't overheated enough to cause the metal to soften too much to be distorted. Hope you can use some of this info.

 

Take a punch and a hammer to it to knock it out, thats how I got it out of my dads 4x4 ranger. You just have to be careful not to scar up the interior of the rotor too bad, if you're hitting the right spot wtih the punch, you shouldn't have any problems, I set it up on a table clamp, surrounded the rotor with a cloth, and went to town on the interior, took me a while to wiggle it out, but it's not that hard. I think it was bc I was nervous about messing it up, he didn't want to buy new rotors, but guess what, they are warped, found that out when we fixed his bearing problems, goes from roar to vibration, great stuff, but the punch and hammer method works.

Missed it's stuck on the shaft part, my fault, but the punch and hammer method still should work on that.

 

I'll give the hammer, punch, chisel a try tomorrow. Thank you for your replies.