Subject: Loctite on carrier bearings?
Author: Greg Field
Date: May 9, 2005, 10:09 PM
Post ID: 1718837237
I've been gluing u-joints to carrier bearings with red loctite for some
time now, but after an experiment I did the other day with a ruined u-j
and carrier, I wonder whether it's really a good idea.
I cleaned the parts well, goobered them up with loctite, and fitted one
over the other. After letting it bond for a few hours, I tested the
strength of the joint by trying to twist and then pound them apart.
Just the two parts, not installed in the swingarm.
No dice, not even with my biggest hammer. To get them to separate, I
had to use the big hammer, lots of heat directly on the carrier race
and enough pounding that the entire carrier was broken to schrapnel.
There isn't a prayer that you'd get them apart if they were already
installed in the swingarm because you could not get heat directly to
the carrier-bearing race, and you'd pound the circlip right out of the
swingarm.
So, if the bond held through all the twisting forces of daily use, you
could never disassemble the u-joint and swingarm again, and if the bond
didn't hold, what's the point of using loctite? Bad, either way. If I
had another trashed bearing, I'd try the blue loctite to see how tough
that is to disassemble.
GF