Hi, I whipped the wheels off my 99-420 yesterday to check the brakes and all was well. Needed no adjustment.
I span the drum and had a good listen and the bearings sound ok.
But I will ask has anyone done the bearings themselves?
I had a quick look at you tube "how to do it on Alko drums" and its fairly straight forward though the part where the bloke battered the old bearing out with a big hammer was a bit rough. I would have thought a bit of heat and a nice press but never mind he was on a garage floor not in a fancy workshop.
I crawled under earlier and found the Alko Chassis plate details and hub type.
Anyone know where I find the bearing type from those details without having to go to a main dealer.
Also, I see advertised the bearing kits and they can come with a 2mm or 3mm thick circlip?
Why and how do you know before you open up?
Looks a lot easier than doing the service on my Tiger thats for sure!

Hi Colin,
I dont have the bigger torque wrench I would have to ask "up n down the street" and borrow one so 3/4" drive I dont know. Easy enough to pop a reducer on though....which I dont have!
At the moment I am trying to find out which 2051 drum I have fitted as there are several bearing sizes for such, been under trying to get some more numbers of the back plate but its a just a bit tight under there..............(too many pies).
I am in no rush all is ok as is, when I get the bearing kits together including new shocks I will pick a nice day and have some fun!

Yeah Ive been doing just that, Ive just read on one of the supply chains that the drum casting number dictates the bearing size. Ah ha. I will whip the wheel off again in the morning (I have nothing else to do) and look again for numbers etc and take some
dimensions.
Mike

The reason for the 3/4" drive is probably for the very large torque wrench that will be needed to tighten the one shot nuts. That's the bit that's missing from my toolkit also.
I think the torque setting is 290Nm.

Western Towing supply a bearing kit for the Al-Ko 2051 drum, here.
Double-check the dimensions (or cross-reference the drum's casting number) before ordering.

Although the old bearing can be knocked out, there is always the danger of damaging the drum so best to press it out.
I use a 10 Tonne bearing press for the job, and even then it's quite an effort.

The new bearing must be pressed in.

Perhaps you could ask a local garage to press them out and the new ones back in.

A tip! If you want to remove a bearing from the hub, once you’ve removed the bearings you will be left with the outer race firmly ‘locked’ into the hub. Lots of people use a hammer and a punch if they cannot have the use of an hydraulic press. This usually takes a lot of hammering.
If you run a weld around the inner side of the race with a MIG and let it cool, you’ll be able to push it out with little effort and sometimes just with your fingers.
Hope this helps

Interesting... is that because the weld shrinks the outer race a little?

Stevejoyce - that’s exactly what happens. It shrinks the race quite considerably. Amazing what school physics/metalwork lessons teach you!,

That is indeed a TOP TIP!

I'll be using that one sometime for sure - thanks you

Steve.