Okay, a good friend of mine works at a place with an INSANE shop. (they build jet engines here) He can either press them in, or he can use the heat/cold process.

He's wondering if anyone knows what temps to use if he was to freeze the bearings and heat up the rotors?

Or would it just be better to press in the bearings?

 

Pressing them in works just fine...

 

I've searched around, and saw that you have to be really careful when pressing in the bearings, so he was going to try the freeze process first. Is this not advised?

 

I personally use an arbor press instead of a hydraulic press; It gives me better control. I heat the rotor to 350ºF and place the bearing in the shop freezer for a couple hours prior to pressing them in.

 

Kewl. Thanks.

I'll let you guys know how it worked out.

 

He got the bearing out of rotor #1. It had apparently be spun quite a bit. He peformed a dimensional on it, and it's worn 0.002". Now, we're down to 3 options, the 1st 2 being free to me.

1. Epoxy the bearing in.
2. Grind it to clean it up. Chrome plate it, and re-grind it to spec...then put the bearing in.
3. Buy another rotor.

Anyone run into this? Or am I the main guy with the bad luck...

 

Buy another rotor.

For the record, I just press my bearings in at room temperature using either a BIG vice or a press (when I have one available).

 

So, these guys are essentially just going to "have fun" with my rotor. Here are the before pics...The after pics will probably be coming sometime next week.

Bearing:



The damage caused by the spun bearing:



They're going to chrome plate and regrind to get rid of all of the scoring inside of the rotor...and to bring it back to spec. Something tells me this will be the 1st and only time someone goes this far to save a rotor.

 

Just so you guys can see what we're doing, I'll keep this thread going.

Here's where they put it in the chrome tank to coat in inside of the rotor to build it up. They'll be machining it down today to get rid of all of the rough areas. I'll get pics up of that, along with the finished product soon.

 

Interesting...

 

yes very interesting...

 

And keep it in spec...

Keep this thread going...

James

 

all that trouble id rather get a new rotor

 

How did you guys mask the areas you did not want to plate? Nice idea BTW.

 

Sometimes it's just about seeing whether or not it can be done. This is the first time I have heard of someone trying to repair a rotor with a spun bearing...

 

Well, this sucks...they forgot to take pictures after they machined it back down to spec. They just pressed the bearing back in.

To "mask" off all of the areas that didn't need chrome, they dipped the entire rotor in wax and put a real thick coat of it on there....then cleaned off the area that needed chrome.

As far as a "good idea", I wouldn't go that far...beacause of the time spent, this is no where near a cost effective way to go.

The rotor sat in the chrome tank for damn near 2 full days....and the rotor did NOT wanna take the chrome....so they re-nickeled it, and put it in the chrome tank and really put the amperage to it. It took that time.

Here's the final finished product. They glass beaded it to clean it up real nice, and to get all of the wax outta the really fine lines for the side seals, and whatnot. Looks good. I'll be putting everything back together, hopefully, this weekend.



Sorry for the crappy quality picture...it was done with my phone. You really can't hardly even make out the chrome in the picture.

 

My b/f also works at a turbine engine overhaul facility as an engineer. They can do anything there.

 

Yeah, I'm sure if they wanted to, they could have made new rotors.