JOCKEY WHEEL DISASSEMBLY
The wheel of my unit was still spinning I unthreaded the greasy internal rod and
freely so I saw no reason to pull it apart. transferred all parts to a bucket for
Instead, I focussed on disassembling the degreasing. If you don’t have any,
shaft of the jockey wheel in order to degreaser can be bought from auto-parts
regrease the winder bearing.
stores and the like.
The winder was held in place by a steel pin.
The first step was to remove it – I used a
nail punch and, when it was protruding
halfway out the other side, pulled the pin
out with a pair of vise grips.
Removing the handle allowed me to then
remove the outer sleeve of the jockey wheel.
In doing so, I exposed a ball bearing casing
‘sandwiched’ by two washers (also known
as a thrust bearing) with slight grooves in
which the ball bearings sat. Again, the
precise arrangement of bearing/washers,
etc., of your jockey wheel might be different
so take note as you’ll need to put everything
back in the correct position.
In my case, a couple ball bearings fell from
the casing and had to be hunted down on
my garage floor – be careful, you don’t
want to loose these.
The bearing had almost no grease left –
which explained the stiffness. With the
errant ball bearings found and put back in
the casing, it made sense to clean and
regrease all components.
I then used warm, soapy water to remove
the degreaser residue, and thoroughly dried
all components. Then, it was simply a
matter of applying a liberal amount of fresh
bearing grease to the bearing, the washers
and the threaded rod.
With everything regreased, I screwed the
rod back into the inner sleeve, refitted the
bearing/washers, and refitted the outer
sleeve and handle. The steel pin was still
useable, so I tapped it back in place using a
hammer.
Upon completion, the jockey wheel worked
as well as it did when new. The stiffness
and jolting had vanished.
Now, a basic jockey wheel such as this one
is not an expensive item to replace. But
before you run out to buy a new one if
yours has become stiff, why not have a go
at servicing it? If you muck it up, you were
prepared to buy a new one anyway.
A bit of effort may give your jockey wheel
years of new life.
“
A GO AT SERVICING IT?”
IF YOUR JOCKEY WHEEL HAS
BECOME STIFF, WHY NOT HAVE