Cam bearing was bad on my 86 EVO, when pulling the bearing out, the puller folded the lip on the bearing cage a little and the puller slipped off, lost a couple needles in the process, anyone ever run into this, and if so is there any way to retrieve them, looks to me like I'll be splitting cases, but if you have any ideas I'd like to hear them.

 

If you know exactly how many bearings are missing from the torrington set up might be easier to pull a cylinder and drop a magnet into the bottom end and see if you can retrieve them If it's time for a bottom end job than split the cases Good luck

 

if you are patient, u will get them out....i lost 6 cam needle bearings down into th crankcase stupidly using a slide hammer puller...pulled th front jug, tried varous flexible magnets down into th cc unsuccessfully....finally found a method using a very strong earth magnet, by slowly repeatedly running th magnet down th side o th crankcase, drawing th needle bearings down to th bottom & then by slowly rotating th crank, they one by one attached themselves to th outer right edge o th right flywheel & rotated to appear at th small gap at th top between flywheel & cc, carefully allowing to pick them out with magnet...
outer shell of bearing wouldnt detach from cc either, so used a dremel to carefully cut it away piece by piece without damaging cc....
cheers

 

great! that's the type of puller that I have, pilot bearing puller. Ever since I saw the Torrington beaing, I've been thinking that this type of puller might knock the needles loose on the old bearing. maybe I'll wait and see if the local Indy will loan or rent me a Jim's puller!

 

Good luck with that! That Jim's puller is so cheap we're lucky if we don't screw it up using it in the shop, let along allowing someone off the street to rent it and bring it back in undamaged condition.

 

I take it you mean cheaply built? They don't seem to be cheap to buy!

 

Yeah, all of Jim's tools are overpriced. The blind bearing puller is no exception, high price and poor design and quality.

 

I pulled the heads and jugs, there is not enough clearence between the case and flywheel that the bearings will just roll out where you can grab them with a magnet. and trying to fish them out of the cam bearing hole is like peeing up a rope, but I like your idea with the earth magnet, I'm gonna try that before I start pulling the motor. Thanks for the advice.

 

I dont want to come off like a *******, but i do want to mention this for future reference, i have read this about 15 times, in the last two years ive been dabbling in harleys, use the correct puller, seriously, they can be had for about 48 bux on ebay, and the installer is 10, so for 60 bux, you wont be in this guys predicament. It sux, and i cant imagine having to split the cases over 60 dollars, just sayin, good luck with the loose needles. chad.

 

I can't find the picture but someone made a fishing system with a flat circle magnet attached it to a metal extension and looked like a good reteival tool. Something to kick around before splitting the cases.