ques related to rotor and race install

Recently ordered new rotors which came with (probably made in china)races installed. Decided to leave them as-is for now since I wasnt familiar with race removal and installation. I can always swap for Timken or some other in the future.

I decided, as practice, to remove the races from one old rotor and see what its like to install them with a race installation tool. They seem to come out OK using a punch but seems like damage could be done very easily to the rotor or race if one wasnt careful. Lesson learned there!

As for installation, I used the install tool and seated the race on the inner side, to what seems correct. 1 is the edge of the inner hub, 2 is the race edge and 3 is the race top where grease seal would go.

Is this what it should look like in the rotor with a properly seated race?? Any particular reason why there is a gap between 1 and 2?

Thanks!

View attachment 41072

From what I can see in the photo your inner race needs to be fully seated to edge #1

Perhaps there is some scoring or a nick from removing it with the punch?

Pop it back out again and check the inner disc surface for any marks particularly raised surfaces and clean them up

I would change the races in the new discs to Timken or similar to save having to do it again due to failure

+1, they need to be seated against your #1. If they're not, the race will work it's way in while you're driving, loosening up the bearings.

Thats what i thought also but the race was seated against an edge. Here is a pic with the race removed so you can see the ~3/16" space between where the race was seated and hub ( space between 1 & 2 in the orig pic ).



Here is a pic with the outer race removed. When the race is bottomed out, there is still ~3/16" raised edge seen in this pic.



Seems strange but never having seen inside a rotor before, was wondering if they are all made like that??

It looks like they had made a roughing cut and went past where the outer bearing race bottoms out. I would advise you to press the new race in not hammer it in. Even though the race is hard you can deform it. Yes tap it with a soft hammer to get started and always put some light oil on the two surfaces to let them slide. You can also apply a little heat to the hub, in the wives oven, and put the race in the freezer and they might just fall into place. We used liquid nitrogen at work when installing big 4" guide pins in die sets. They would just drop in the hole but when they warmed up would not come out.

I made some plugs that sat on the races to press them when I did lots of work but could never find now, lol. Sort of like a cam bearing driver.

If you do rear axle bearings you can freeze the axle and heat the bearing some and they go on much easier also.

The foreign bearings are much better than they use to be.

Since you are new to doing the front bearings a little helpful tip for future. If you are going to remove the front hubs to grease them follow this.

Take the big nut off the spindle and remover the washer and the inner bearing. Put just the nut back on the spindle and when you slide the hub off let it drop down on the grease seal and the nut will catch the seal and pop it out. Then you can just remove the inner bearing and wash it all up and repack the bearings.

Thanks for all the advice and tips!