Bearing Press - 6T enough?

[Ladders]

Hi! I’m thinking of getting a bearing press just for fitting wheel bearings into my Elise hubs.

Would a 6 tonne bench press be enough for the job? Would be heating the steel casings up to aid fittings etc.

Thanks for any advice.

[Boosted LS1]

I'm sure that's ample. You could probably press the bearing in using a vice if big enough. Adding some heat should make the job a doddle.

[Ladders]

Cheers! Worth a try I suppose.

[Chris32345]

Putting them into a cleaned hub probably getting the old one out less so

[G600]

I've used about 15T (40T press with a gauge) to press out hub bearings before so if you're removing them as well I'd look for something bigger

[imagineifyeswill]

6ton would be a pretty feeble press. I was changing a bearing in a Peugeot partner on Thursday and just happened to be watching the pressure gauge, reached between 13 and fifteen tonne pressing the old one out and 7 to 8 putting the new one in.

[Ladders]

Maybe just better to take the local garage then as usual!

[mrtwisty]

I bought a 12t press recently - non-branded ebay special. £90 delivered and its actually a good bit of kit! Looks identical to the Machine Mart ones at nearly twice the cost.

[VanDiesel99]

I bought a 6 Ton Press and encountered two problems

1: it was far too feeble for pressing out the 30mm OD Bushes that I primarily wanted it for (but it was powerful enough to destroy them, ie to press out the 'Rubber', leaving me just the outer ring to Hammer out)

2: the Wishbones from which / into which I wanted to use the Press (Peugeot 405 in my case) are designed in such that I had to put the Wisbone 'on its end' to press the Bush in / out.

It wasn't possible to lay it down in an obvious way, which made it next to impossible to keep 'Secure' for the purpose of the job.

I was deeply un-impressed with it and felt that there was no value in it taking up space in my 'shop, so having scratched it slightly in the course of these shenanigans, therefore being unable to return it; I sold it second-hand a week after I'd bought it new, for about £20 less than the £63 I'd paid for it.
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[CAPP0]

Agree with comments, 6T is probably going to let you down on some jobs, for the sake of a few more quid and possibly slightly larger size I'd go 12T or 15T minimum really. No point going lower if you're going to commit anyway.

Edited by CAPP0 on Monday 2nd November 20:49

[Ladders]

Yes, if a 6T has trouble pressing a rubber bush out I can’t see it being much use!

[Boosted LS1]

^ You have to press against the outer bearing not the inner.

[wildoliver]

I managed without my own press for years just borrowing other people's, it's one of those tools you rarely need and just sits there most of the time, but when you need it you need it, anyway I had a load of jobs all come in together and it wouldn't have been fair to borrow others to do it all.

I bought a cheap eBay special. The type that uses a glorified bottle jack. It was absolutely useless, the bottle jack designs fine, but the metal was thin and flimsy, nothing was true on it and the tolerances were all so sloppy it was impossible to press anything without it cockling all.over the place. When you could finally get it to apply pressure the weak build would flex before pressing anything out.

It was so rubbish I complained and got a full refund.

I bought a 20 tonne press from SGS engineering and it was a totally different experience. It arrived fully built on a pallet, was delivered by a great lady driver who couldn't do enough to help, the press is fantastic.

[LimSlip]

VanDiesel99 said:

I bought a 6 Ton Press and encountered two problems

1: it was far too feeble for pressing out the 30mm OD Bushes that I primarily wanted it for (but it was powerful enough to destroy them, ie to press out the 'Rubber', leaving me just the outer ring to Hammer out)

That says you didn't use the correct sized mandrel to press the bushes out, which isn't the fault of the press...