SEPARABLE BLIND BEARING PULLER

Abstract

A separable blind bearing puller, having a main body assembly having a collet and a drive bolt and an expansion device, which is separable from the main body assembly, where the expansion device is preferably a ball bearing.

Claims

1. A separable blind bearing puller, comprising: a main body assembly having a collet and a drive bolt; and an expansion device, which is separable from said main body assembly.

2. The separable blind bearing puller of claim 1, wherein: said expansion device is a ball bearing.

3. A separable blind bearing puller, comprising: a collet having flexible fingers; a drive bolt; and a ball bearing, which when forced by said drive bolt expands said flexible fingers.

4. The separable blind bearing puller of claim 3, wherein: said ball bearing is separable from said drive bolt.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

[0012] The purposes and advantages of the present invention will be apparent from the following detailed description in conjunction with the appended drawings in which:

[0013] FIG. 1 shows a isometric view of a bearing of the prior art;

[0014] FIG. 2 shows a side plan view of the blind bearing puller of the prior art;

[0015] FIG. 3 shows a cut-away view of the blind bearing puller of the prior art taken from line 3-3 of FIG. 2;

[0016] FIG. 4 shows a side plan view of the present blind bearing puller; and

[0017] FIG. 5 shows cut-away view of the present blind bearing puller taken from line 5-5 of FIG. 4.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0018] The present invention is a separable blind bearing puller with an independently separable expansion device. This will be referred to as a separable blind bearing puller 40.

[0019] The separable blind bearing puller 40 is illustrated in FIGS. 4-5 where the separable blind bearing puller 40 is shown to have a main body assembly 41 which includes a collet 42, and a drive bolt 43. The collet 42 is constructed with flexible fingers 44 having finger tips 46 which when expanded will grip the inner surface 4 of the inner aperture 3 of the bearing 1 (see FIG. 1), to enable the bearing 1 to be pulled out. This expansion is accomplished by the forward movement of the drive bolt 43, as it is rotated and advanced by screw threads (not shown). The expansion device 45 is not formed as an integral part of the drive bolt, as in the prior art shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, and thus will be referred to as a separable expansion device 45. The drive bolt 43 has a flat face 48 to advance the separable expansion device 45 to force the flexible fingers 44 outward as the separable expansion device 45 advances as moved forward by the rotation of the drive bolt 43 after the flexible fingers 44 have been inserted into the inner aperture 3 of the blind bearing 1.

[0020] In the present embodiment, the separable expansion device 45 is a ball bearing 50, which has several advantages as described above. The ball bearing 50, being a spherical shape, is not captured, and is free to rotate when under pressure, so the expansion device 45, being the ball bearing 50, presents differing portions, so that wear is more evenly distributed and parts may last longer without wearing out or degrading performance. Also, since the ball bearing 50 is separable, and indeed removable, by extracting the drive bolt 43 from the collet 42, thus allowing the ball bearing 50 to fall out from the main body assembly 41 for easy replacement. The entire expansion device 45 ball bearing 50 then can be easily replaced by another ball bearing 50, which is easily obtainable and may be purchased as a non-specialized part.

[0021] While various embodiments have been described above, it should be understood that they have been presented by way of example only, and not limitation.