King Kutter Outer Hub Bearing Replacement Question - Pull the shaft?

[Rford]

King Kutter II 60TG tiller. The outer hub bearing is messed up from lack of grease and dirt. Looks to me like there are about 12 of them left out of 20 or so. Pretty gritty. Cleaned it out last year, greased it up and used it but I'm going to need to replace the bearing at some point. I'm hoping I don't have to pull the whole thing apart, although it might not be that big a deal, I really haven't looked it over closely and have asked KK if they have a service manual for sale...they responded that the parts manual was available on line so I'm assuming they are telling me I'm too dumb to realize there are 12 bolts holding the whole thing together....but I'm hoping someone has done this job and can tell me what not to do.

Here's my questions:

Can I pull the bearing without pulling the hub? I doubt it from the looks of things.

What's all involved in pulling the shaft if that's what I need to do to get the outer hub separated?

Press on hub? Will it come off with some heat and a puller? Once the hub is off, can I just the bearing be replaced without the hub too?

Thanks in advance.

This tiller has worked well and hard for me. The bearing failure was my own fault for not taking care of it and realizing it needed some grease.

 

[Rford]

Bump this morning.

 

[Baby Grand]

Assuming it's the bearing on the side oposite the gear drive?
I would guess from the parts catalog it should unbolt and slide off:
http://www.kingkutter.com/store-parts.aspx?id=7038
You'll probably want to hold the tiller on your 3pt hitch and support the spool with a car jack so the weight isn't loading the bearing when you take it out.

 

[Rford]

Assuming it's the bearing on the side oposite the gear drive?
I would guess from the parts catalog it should unbolt and slide off:
http://www.kingkutter.com/store-parts.aspx?id=7038
You'll probably want to hold the tiller on your 3pt hitch and support the spool with a car jack so the weight isn't loading the bearing when you take it out.

I'm probably overthinking it, the parts diagram helps some. The way the hub is mounted it has to slide inward and so the shaft will need to move over which will require the opposite site gear/bearing/ etc. to slide over as well, which means basically taking the whole unit apart, although the gear box, drive cover and shaft might all move together with the removal of a few bolts. I guess I'll have to look at it a bit closer.

 

[ChristopherHawkins77]

Were you able to fix the tiller? I've got to replace bearings on the drive side. Any help on how to do this would be appreciated.

 

[Rford]

Sorry...I've been lucky and even though the outer bearing race had gotten dry and dirty which chewed up some of the bearings I've been able to clean it up and keep it greased and running. Figure I'll just wait until something gives before I replace it. I have had the new bearing sitting on a shelf now for a couple years.

 

[ChristopherHawkins77]

Thanks for your response.

 

[Rford]

Thanks for your response.

No problem. In fact, if you tackle yours please take some photos and come back when you are done and post....

 

[Razo]

I'm replacing my outboard hub and i had to get it all out from the gear end. Pull the gear box off and you can angle it out the front and get a 3 jaw puller on it. Prybars and profanity got it all apart for me. I had to get an inch longer bolt to press my new bearing back on but your results might vary.

 

[Razo]

Looking back i should have just cut the outboard flange off a couple of inches below the frame and welded gussets on it that i could bolt back into. Strokes of genius show up too late sometimes

 

[RogerLCannon]

I did the same mistake as Rford, I rarely greased the hub and the bearings and end cap broke apart. I would recommend anyone buying this tiller to take off the hub cap and check how much/if any grease is inside. I ordered the entire hub assembly PN 184070 not knowing how much was damaged inside the hub. You might be able to buy the bearing and replacement seal double lip to do the repair but if you are reading this your cap PN 902342 is probably busted too. Just get a new hub assembly with the bearings/seal lips/cap PN 184070 for less than the price of the individual parts.

My fix was was Razo did (thanks by the way!), I removed the outside gear box to angle the whole rotor assembly. I also removed the bottom gear but I don't think that was necessary. To remove the top most gear it requires a snap ring pliers and the one I bought was barely big enough to get the snap ring open.

To get the outer damaged hub off I used a large 3 jaw puller and some decent taps with a sledge hammer (see the attached photo).

Reassembling the top most gear back was confusing, the shaft going back to the central gear box can slide in towards the center gear box so you probably will have to pull the shaft out to get the snap ring back into the grove.

Also I reversed all the bolts attaching to the frame so the nuts are on the outside of the tiller. The threads were getting a little beat up that were inside the frame and I assume it would be easier to loosen them when the nuts are on the outside instead of trying loosen them from the bolt head assuming I have to do this again...

 

[sandikay60]

The king kutter outboard hub spins but not connected to shaft. What is wrong bearing are good