Extremely tight bearing seat on Horizon

My question is how I can remove/replace a bearing from a very tight seat safely, and also how (if possible) to make the bearing seat on a yoyo much more loose.

Story time:
I got a Flight, Horizon, and two Protostars among other yoyos in the mail on Monday. I hadn’t gotten a chance to until today, so I figured I would lube up all of their bearings.

Removing the bearing, a spacer from both of the Protostars as well as the Flight, without fail, was stuck to their respective bearing and required more than 10 minutes of work each to get off, with pliers. I managed to bend one of the Protostar spacers at the narrow section and had to bend it back.

Removing the Horizon bearing was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I tried the multitool for a good 10+ minutes before moving on to pliers with a paper towel, and finally to bare pliers, throwing the Horizon in the freezer all throughout this process. It was horrible, I felt like I was going to break the yoyo or the bearing the whole time. I felt like my motto was “never take pliers to a bearing” until this happened.

Lubed the bearings up, and now putting the bearing back on the Horizon was even more of a nightmare. I spent atleast an hour, after carefully centering and making the bearing level, tried pushing it in, using a screwdriver as a lever with the bearing as the fulcrum, and none of it worked. I did a very foolish thing next, but it was the only thing that would make the bearing go all the way in, I folded up some paper towels, put it on the bearing, and took a hammer to it with somewhat light taps. The bearing was finally in and the yoyo doesn’t wobble like it did when there was a miniscule uneven seat of the bearing. However, though the bearing seems to work just fine and just as it did before, it make a somewhat loud noise when spinning (and who could blame it after being whacked atleast 10 times with a hammer)

I was very careful throughout this whole process, but I guess you could say I really lost my bearing.
I really hate having to do stuff like that. I need a way to never have to do it again. I shouldn’t have to use a hammer to seat a bearing, and that wasn’t even a last resort until my actual last resort didn’t work. I am very patient and try to do this stuff the right way but it was absolutely impossible not to use a hammer. I need a way to make the bearing seat not so ridiculously tight. Thanks for the help :slight_smile:

So much for a first post, but until now I didn’t really have anything to post about :stuck_out_tongue:

My horizon has the tightest bearing assembly i’ve ever seen. I use the chuck end of a 1/4" drill bit to take mine off. I’m sure the YYF bearing tool works fine too but I don’t have one. Mine loosened up a bit after a few cycles.

To make it fit less tight, wrap a small amount of 200 grit carbide paper (wet/dry) around the hub and sand it down by rotating it around. Keep good tension on it and work around the hub evenly.

I actually haven’t had an issue pulling the bearing out of my Horizon using my YYF Multi Tool.

Sorry you had a problem with your Horizon, there are some yo-yos that have a pretty tight bearing seat and it can get a little frustrating. The key when using a multi tool is to rock it back and forth, don’t pull, just push left to right and you’ll see the bearing slowly come off the seat. It takes some patience but with a little practice you’ll get it.

Like Jhb said, some sand paper around the bearing seat will fix this issue. If you’re not comfortable doing that yourself or don’t want to risk damaging the yo-yo just give us a call or send an email and we can help you out.

I agree this definitely works, but be careful. I have introduced vibe into yoyo’s by doing this.