Drag link - removing bearings and cleaning up

 After finding a broken lug on my original drop link (right-hand side in image below), I bought a a couple of second-hand replacements. Why two? Well I bought one thinking it would d

o the job and then came across another that was going cheap and couldn't pass it up.

Repaired lug on second hand drag link

Broken lug on my original drag link

I hadn't yet stripped the first. I was amazed to discover that it had clearly failed in the same way as my original but had been repaired with weld (left-hand picture).

There was corrosion evident in the needle roller bearings in all three drag links - my original was the worst of them despite looking the best externally. In all of them, it was noticeably worse on the left-hand side. I'm guessing this is because it is the same side as the side stand and so water would have accumulated around it over time because of the lean angle when parked up. 

I was unsure how hard it would be to remove them so decided to use my broken original to practice on. I found that a 19mm socket was the right size to just press on the outer race of the needle roller and a 32mm socket just big enough for a needle roller to fit inside. So I used a long piece of threaded rod to squeeze one of the needle roller bearings into the body of the drag link. 

It was a very tight fit, not helped by the corrosion on the lip of the bearings. I decided I would move both bearings inwards a couple of mm first, to get them moving, before trying to draw both through to one side in one go. I used a hot air gun to heat up the aluminium body of the drag link to help relax its grip on the bearings.

The first needle roller bearing starts to appear to the right
after heating up the casting with a hot air gun and
compressing the 19mm socket right inside the casting
against the left-hand bearing.

 After the first bearing started to come out I had to switch to a larger socket because my 32mm socket was not deep enough to receive the needle roller bearings. I had to make do with a socket that was quite a bit too large really but it worked with care.

Very rust bearings after removal

Pitting in the casting

Technique sorted, out they come

The old bearings really were horrible - not that it mattered much given that I was just practicing on a duff part. I found that greasing the 19mm socket made a difference to the effort in winding the bearings out, probably because of the angle the threaded rod was forced into by the over-large deep socket. So having refined my technique, I moved on to the two second-hand replacement drag links. I wouldn't say it was an easy thing to do but it was very rewarding.

The castings all showed evidence of corrosion so, after the bearings were out, I carefully polished out the worst of it with a drill and mop. 

Comparing drag links before (below) and after (above)
cleaning up with a drill and mop

Drag links after removing corrosion (2)

Drag links after removing corrosion (1)