Re: Axle will not move freely after front wheel bearing replacement (May 16, 2018, 12:13:22 PM by Phinn)
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The inner hub spacer should be barely movable (with your finger) before you install the axle and tighten everything down. You should be able to spin one bearing one way, and the other the opposite way. Touching the inner spacer, but not hard against it.
Once you button it all up and crank down the axle nut, then the two inner races will sit hard against the inner spacer. That’s what the inner spacer does: brace the inner races so they don’t get crushed inward toward each other, thereby throwing one or both of the inner races out of alignment with its out race. They don’t roll well that way, and will cause the rollers to chew themselves up.
Above is a portion of a SOHC/4 forum discussion from 2018 about this same issue. The portion I have in red talks about being able to rotate each bearing inner race independent of each other (i.e.: bearings are just lightly touching the inner spacer allowing their independent rotation, prior to tightening the axle down)
I cannot rotate each of my bearings inner races independently, as they are pressing onto the inner spacer too far, therefore my thought that one of the bearing is pressed in deeper than it should be.