Clutch release arm needle bearings

[Barrieb]

Guys, stripped back rear drive to replace a wrecked clutch arm realise bearing boot on my 1984 K100RS Noticed the needle bearings in the arm were shot and (foolishly?) tried to remove these as replacements are only £12 a pair.  I'm sure you can guess that despite using correct sized drift, the internal bearings collapsed leaving me with the outer part of the bearing in the pivot arm.  It looks like there isn't a "floating spacer between the bearings, which leaves me thinking the only way to remove the outer part is by carefully drilling them out??

I do have a spare pivot arm, but this has a very seized bush running right through.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Barrie

[Laitch]

Please put the year of your bike in your profile, Barrieb, so it will show up in each of your posts.

[Laitch]

Any suggestions?

Warm up the lever, drop it into a container of penetrant and work on it tomorrow afternoon with a drift. You'll need a new style bushing and rod.

[Barrieb]

Thanks, it my be silly question, but I take it that the needle bearings have a removable spacer between them?

Barrie

[Laitch]

Please put your bike's model year in your profile so it shows up in each post.

[Martin]

It's worthwhile fitting a grease nipple while you have it removed. You will have to drill and tap a hole suitable for the nipple. An occasional shot of grease will keep the road crap from getting in and push any crap out.
Regards Martin.

[Barrieb]

Thanks guys, the spares that came with my bike have saved the day again! Arm on the spare gearbox has the bushing fitment  with bleed nipple fitted
Happy days, now I just need to clean off years of congealed gear oil and dirt from back of the gearbox, but end result will be no more gear oil drips

[Justmike]

So I ran into this same problem trying to put new bearings in my clutch release arm - couldn’t get the old ones out and really mangled them trying different things. Came in from the shop to consult the collective wisdom of the board and found this thread. Headed back out to the shop sulking.
Then a light came on in my little pea brain, and I figured I had nothing to lose. So I fired up the mig welder and very carefully laid down a couple of small beads in the id of  what remained of the bearing outer races. Then, using a suitable drift, gave a few taps against these beads and presto - the first one almost fell out. The second one was a bit stubborn, but ultimately came out with a few good whacks.
Pressed the new bearings in and installed the arm with a new spindle - ready for another 100k.
Chalk one up for the good guys! I hope this helps out somebody else on the board facing the same problem.

[Martin]

Easy to do.

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Clutch grease nipple 2.jpg (38.33 kB . 768x576 - viewed 399 times)

[Justmike]

Yup - should have been there from the factory!