Just did my Rayco 1625 axle today. Both sides had tacks of weld on the hub that I had to grind off first. Don't know if that was original. Every grub screw on bearings ( two each) and hubs (two each) were that rusted and seized after twenty years of mud and water that Penetrene and heat did nothing. I had to drill them out with Cobalt drill bits. The sprocket hub was loose on the shaft and only put up a bit of resistance to the 250mm three jaw puller. Both the keyway on the axle and the key were totally munted. Reckon a few more weeks and the key would have stripped. The welds were all broken on that side and that strange looking skip tooth sprocket is nearly worn down to a blank. Think that I'll just weld some of the teeth back up and grind back to profile. Don't feel like selling my children to buy a new hub/sprocket, if they're even available in Oz.
Since the axle has to go out the sprocket side, ( there's an oversize flange that the sprocket hub butts up to, so you can't slide out the other way to replace only the sprocket side wheel bearing .. thanks Rayco ), you have to take off the off-side hub. Mine was a real cow, but after heating the hub up to red and hitting the puller at full nut cracking torque on the big Milwaukee for nearly a minute, the hub eventually moved and came off. Totally corroded and rusted. Perhaps Rayco couldn't afford anti-seize grease back in the day.
The axle feels like it's totally seized onto the bearings, so I think I'll just crack or gas-axe them off tomorrow.
Whatever designer at Rayco thought that grubscrews were a peachy idea in mud and water, getting pounded but stones and gravel, wants his head read. There's other ways to hold bearings on.
