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removable wheel bearing SPACER / PIPE

gtgt_bangbang

New member
watched some vids on wheel bearings , when one good ol guy forgot to insert the spacer pipe in the wheel before installing the 2nd bearing race.
The pipe wont pass inside the bearing races due to about 1~2 mm interference between the plastic centering rings (aka 36 31 1 237 595 RING) and the race.

He had a pretty good response , separated the plastic centering spools off the pipe , inserting all the pieces one by one and re-assembling it inside the hub, "ship in a bottle" style.

Clearly worked, but the plastic spools on my pipes are such a really tight fit, stuck on tube from years of sitting there , and it may suck trying to get them back on the pipe without nicking / deforming them , there isnt much access in the there, etc, and if they get dinged up, especially on their ID, it may interfere with seating the wedding ring as is required.

Thinking how to get the pipe & spacers back through a seated race, to get it back inside the hub , without disassembling it;

so I Nipped off a crescent-segment of the lip around the centering ring , then did the same on the other ring, about 120 degrees off from the first cut.

Nipping these segments off allows the tube to pass in & out of the bearings with just a little rock & roll & push & shove .

One purpose of the plastic ring is to center up the spacer pipe enough to ease inserting the axle, but spreading the nipped-off chunks around helps avoid too much slop to center it up for the 3 seconds its does that job.


OK why the heck remove the spacer pipe between bearing changes ? one asks. Cant you ever leave well enough alone ?


heck no. My craptastiic harbor freight MC tire installer stand works well enough, a decent tool except they never included a good 'spindle', ( or mine showed up , without ) . The spindle passes through the wheel , is used to hold the wheel secure & centered on machine, and as a pivot point to work the tire lever around.

The handle of a trolly jack was the best spindle I found yet , does great at that task , near perfect diameter & length, helps machine work better.

Problem is, the jack handle diameter is too large to pass thru the spacer pipes 17mm ID .
I dont have any long enough 17mm rods that will slip thru the pipe and work as well as a pivot.
yeah maybe there is a black pipe that works, never bothered to find one just for that job, as the well-fitting jack handle was ideal.


With the spacer tube removable, it pulls out for tire changes with the trusty jack handle tube , then re-insert the spacer , and nobody knows nothing, see ?.


PIC; nipped flange on rings on spacer to allow passage into hub; nipped less than ~ 1/4 of the flange off the ring, at 2 points spread around spacer.
The first ring passes easily with just this much flange removed , the 2nd ring takes a little more convincing due to restricted off-axis shoves possible, but it passed .
Will probably take some more off next time its out, or maybe cut smaller segments off at several places. Seems a cross pattern of remaining flange with allow easiest passage. I'd say insert the end of the pipe that has the plastic ring hanging off end ( to capture the wedding ring) FIRST, as it will take less abuse going in that way.

IF you have bearings pulled, you can test the nips before installing both races, just to check your eye ballin.

I guess you could just hammer out the spacer pipe through its rings, but take care not to nick the spacer pipe ends,
if they are deformed at all then the pipe wont work properly as a spacer,
as pipe end faces must be flat , square & parallel or it will cause uneven load on the bearing, and bearing adjustment will never be right & wrong in a fairly hard to determine manner.

bmw r100 whele pipe spacer - 1.jpeg
 
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... My craptastiic harbor freight MC tire installer stand works well enough, a decent tool except they never included a good 'spindle', ( or mine showed up , without ) .
The spindle passes through the wheel , is used to hold the wheel centered on machine, and as pivot to work the tire iron around.

The handle of a trolly jack was the best spindle I found yet , does great at that task , near perfect diameter & length, makes the machine work better.

Problem is the jack handle diameter is too large to pass thru the spacer pipes 17mm ID .
I dont have any long enough 17mm rods that will slip thru the pipe and work as well as a pivot.
yeah maybe there is a black pipe that works, never bothered to find one just for that job, as the well-fitting jack handle was ideal...

My HF tire changer came with a spindle, but it's too big for the front wheel of my Hexhead. I just use a foot long 1/2" drive socket extension instead. Yes, the fit is very loose, but it works just fine.
 
sweeet . my tire machine was freebie , so I didn't sweat the missing small stuff (and its ALL small stuff)

It also came with what I supposed was the MC tire "adaptor" , sold as an extra attachment (pic) , which consists of maybe just that 90angled tube above the wheel-holder section, I dunno , didnt bother finding any documents on it. I think this adaptor is what turns HF's mere mortal tire machine into a MC'ing legend.


Using that MC adaptor on mine seems to require a spindle at least 2 1/2 feet long & the jack handle sits there like it was made for it.
heck I was going to install the tires before installing the wheel bearings just to use it the Better Faster Way, until the idea of a removable distance piece pipe popped up.

That pic is nearly ALL of the useful part of the tire machine. Everything that sits below it is basically a stout pipe attached to something more stout.
Wish I had a 3 foot tree stump still stuck in the ground , it would make a great platform for this topper part.

Still if I had a 2 1/2 foot long 1/2 extension , it may not only fit through the hub/pipe & work OK , but I would actually have found a use for a freakishly long extension . win win. I do find lots of use for a 3 foot long 3/8 extension ... I can pull spark plugs through fender walls while Barca-lounging with THAT thing.





HF now offers some shorter hoop thing called a MC tire changer ( looks more like what the elephant stands on at the circus) , but I think it is only suited to remove rubber, dont see how it installs ... any body have / like one of those ?





There were several redesigns of wheel holder "claws" that came & went during HF's tire machine product run , and folks sell polypro (plastic) fittings of various types ( mojo blocks?) to keep the hold-down claws from rodgering up a pretty wheel. Mine was probably early Rev version of tool & not very friendly for adding set of those $30~50 pads , but I had some superduper MAGA-sized shrink tube ( ask a telephone/cable trunk line installer for some scraps if you'd rather not climb telephone pole for a living, yourself). That shrink tube worked perfect, tough as balls so far. I did see some " connector burial shrink tube", probably glue lined & thicker than average at HD, that may be big enough to fit around the rim hooks too.

I got one of that same guy's "mojo bar" , a better tire lever than came with machine, after a handful of uses, I didnt regret the $100 or so for that.


man how do I make my pics smaller? Im not trying to post billboards of every snap-shot

hf tire machine - 1.jpeghf tire machine - 1 (1).jpeg
 
man how do I make my pics smaller? Im not trying to post billboards of every snap-shot

I think the OG's can appreciate the Reader's Digest Large Format Version. :gerg

If it loads to the forum, no need to worry on size. :thumb

OM
 
I didn't realize the HF m/c wheel adapter had been discontinued. Found the manual here.

I don't use the upper support arms, they get in the way of my Mojolever or tire irons more than they help. The pressure against the center post (socket extension) is all down low near the wheel. I probably should look for something a bit larger than the extension, but I forget, and the extension is always handy when I need it.
 

thanks for the Reading Material ! now I get it - the MC adaptor was the WHOLE assembly from wheel-holder up .
Will be nice to finally see if I've been doing anything spec with it...



I found this claw somewhere , its stops the tire bead from sneaking back off the lip when working around the rim. helps sometimes.



I see what you mean but IME , & using that upper bracket / arm as the start point, the tire is on before going full circle with the lever, or I've quit already for some cooling beverage and calming thought. The mojo bar is a nice design . Lot of $ for a steel bar & nylon tips, but well done for sure.

The machine POST is threaded down inside where the spindle sits, wish I would come across a spindle with that thread to make a hold down & spindle combo ,
then I would give the MC attachment upper arm to a HF museum to do WTH they want with it.

hf tire machine  - 1.jpeg
 
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