'84 VF500 Front Wheel Bearing Replacement

After putting a new tire on the front wheel of my VF500, the spacer between the bearings came loose. Weirdly, there seem to be *two* spacers in there which prevented me from just shaking the spacer upright and into place. The manual seems to be silent about this second spacer.

It seems the only solution is to replace the bearings and reseat the spacer(s) along the way. I'm about halfway through this and things are going smoothly, but I'm wondering how I'm supposed to seat the second spacer as I drive in the second bearing?

Thanks!

 

Something funny here. There are not 2 spacers originally in a front wheel. And that dust seal with the metal inner is strange.
That bearing OD looks big too for a front. Speedo drive missing too?

Stock wheels? Post pic if you're not sure.

 

Thanks for the quick reply.

The wheels are definitely not stock - the previous owner did this CBR600 wheel mod (http://www.daughertymotorsports.com/v4section.html) and it has been causing problems since the day I got it.

Attached are some pictures of the axle w/ speedo drive, wheel, and bearings (6302-2RS/C3).

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What front end is on the bike? Cuz the mod for the front is to machine down the wheel where the rotors mount about 5 mm each side to fit the stock front end.
And I think the CBR speedo drive gets modified a bit too.

Nevermind, they are 500 discs so stock front end.

 

So the spacer with the metal inner, that goes over the speedo drive and reduces it to 17mm? Then the extra spacer (assuming it's 17mm) makes up the difference of the stock 500 (17mm) inner spacer to accomodate the wider inner portion of the cbr wheel. Maybe some grease will hold the inner spacers enough in place while you drive the bearings and keep them from seperating.

Just shootin' from the hip here.

 

Yeah, pretty sure the front end is still stock.

If I follow you then yes, the extra shorter spacer (17.3mm) sits on top of the longer stock spacer (56.8mm) to accommodate the bigger CBR wheel. Attached a picture of what I hope is the correct ordering of speedo/bearings/spacers on the axle.

Grease between them sounds like a good idea. I may also leave the axle partially in from below to hold both spacers while I drive the second bearing from above.

Thanks!

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What problems (besides the current spacer issue) have you been having with the setup?

 

And looking at the wheel closer, seems someone went above and beyond machining the locating tabs on every disc mount. Not necessary, but good attention to detail.

 

Update: New bearings installed in the front wheel. Slipping in the axle part way and some grease between the spacers for good measure did the trick.

Gripes for the wheel conversion:
- Issues with speedometer.
- Cannot use center stand.
- Spacing in rear wheel set up. Everything is incredibly tight back there. The modified caliper mount broke off on me a couple years back - somehow it moved a bit when riding so that the rotor started smacking it till it came loose. Had to have a new one made and sent. I filed some worrisome bits down on the new one.
- Difficult to use manual for maintenance.

As I am now replacing the tires, I am running into another issue with the spacing in the rear wheel set up. The chain is rubbing on the tire. I'll update with some pictures to provide a better idea of how tight it is and whether the spacers are in the correct order, etc.

Thanks!