I am assembling my variable pitch hub with new bearings, and have come across a few issues. The felt washers for the inner seals were pretty rough, with the outer ones that go into the shaft/bearing adjustment nut the only ones looking good enough to reuse. I replaced the inner seals with a Teflon washer cut to fit the application. It fits pretty nicely and should hold most the grease in the bearing cavity. The seals at the outboard point of the housing (inside the housing though) were damaged by the shaft springs. When taking it apart, I found the springs were pushing into the bearing cavity, through the felt washers. Since the outer bearing is a sealed ball bearing, I thought the need for a "tight" seal was less necessary. I elected to make a Teflon washer to cover the outer housing shaft hole, and added a steel washer to avoid the spring pushing through the Teflon one.
When installing the outer ball bearing, I thought it should be driven up to the shoulder on the shaft (seems like the logical location), but found it very tight once within 1/2" of the shoulder, and the shaft starts binding up. Looking at the "witness marks" from the previous bearing, it's evident the old bearing were located back from the shoulder too.
Once the shaft and outer bearing is installed, you can see the bearing is 1/2" back from the shoulder on the shaft (I have a file handle holding the spring & washers back). Looking at it, at this assembly point, it's again evident the old bearings were not to the shoulder, or the springs would have not been able to penetrate the bearing cavity.
Looking at the outer adjustment nut, I would be running them in pretty deep if the bearing was up to the shoulder too.
Hope someone can give me some guidance on this??
Tom Sullivan