I came a cropper on my rowing machine this morning, when the seat, which runs up and down an aluminium frame as you row, started making alarming grinding noises. The seat runs on four rollers, and upon dismantling, I discovered that two of these were badly worn, with one now completely adrift.
Picture of the seat, upside down, is here:
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rollers are hard plastic (nylon?) and should be a firm fit on a ball-bearing; however the inner surface of the roller is so worn that there's now a deep groove in there, and it's no longer in contact with the outer surface of the bearing at all:
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don't rate my chances of finding new replacments (obsolete and obscure machine) and would like to attempt a repair by filling up the gap and re-attaching the roller to the bearing. Not easy, owing to the considerable load (ie, my not insubstantial body, in motion) it will have to take. Any ideas?
As immediate solutions I'm thinking car body filler or Araldite? but what about some form of liquid metal (which I know nothing about)?
Any thoughts appreciated... David