The front bearing in my Bullet is not running as smoothly as it did when new, a year or so back. I have bought two replacement bearings from Amazon. I tried removing the bearing this afternoon while doing a quick clean up of the roaster and found it quite snug and tight. I also have a bearing removal tool, however, am a bit scared to apply too much pressure just in case it damages the front/inside plate.
Any suggestions and tips would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
I’m interested too. The bearings are exposed to a lot of heat, oil & chaff-bits making them a target for a short life. I bought a box of 6 brand new bearings (Amazon) but lack the gumption to try installing them! The bearing has to be a press fit, but I’m reluctant to use my usual hammer+dowel to drive it out/in of the front plate.
Bruce
I believe the front bearing has to be pushed out from the front plate towards the inside of the roaster, when the front plate is removed !
My bullet is a few years old, and still has the original bearing with no issues. In any case, my bearing is a loose fit on the drum spindle, and doesn’t require any tools to remove.
Maybe try a littel heat from a heat gun to loosen the oils that are causing your bearing to seize.
The “official” Aillio video here is quite useful for full assembly and disassembly tips:
For this job, you really only need to remove the front plate - leaving the control panel in place - and there are plenty of videos out that that show it being supported by the chaff collector (Sweet Marias) or a block of some kind. I cut a quick slot in a cardboard box to set it in when I did a full drum removal. If you haven’t taken the front plate off before, you may find like I did that there is an extra loop of wire for the front panel electronics that doesn’t immediately pop out. However I suspect all machines do have enough slack there to allow you to really move the front plate out of the way.
FWIW, the bearing is not a tight press fit: it’s quite loose, and to pull the front plate off, leaving the bearing on the shaft, you’ll only need to apply pressure to overcome whatever gummed up oils are holding it in place. On a new machine, it requires essentially no force at all.
Yeah, the load on this bearing is really small, bearing materials are many orders of magnitude harder than anything in a coffee bean, and without seals I don’t think hardened steel cares about the heat either. I’ll probably remove and check that they are running smoothly from time to time. If not, an alcohol bath - at most with ultrasonic - is the next thing to try because I don’t see these bearings failing to run smoothly due to damage to the balls or races.