How to remove skateboard bearings

There are several reasons to remove your skateboard bearings; for cleaning or to replace them with some fresh new skateboard bearings. If your bearings don't spin quite as easily as they used to, or if they feel gritty, it might be time to perform some regular skateboard maintenance. Removing your skateboard bearings is fairly easy; however, there are a couple of tricks you should know.

Before beginning read through these instructions and be careful while taking the bearings out, it's easy to accidentally damage your wheels if you aren't careful. The only tools that you'll need are for the removal of your skateboard wheels, any skate tool or set of screw drivers and wrenches will do.

Begin by removing your skateboard's wheels. The easiest way to do this is with a handy skate tool, or a 1/2 inch socket wrench. If your skateboard had some kind of special bearing shields, you will need to remove these too.

Next, place the wheel slightly back on the skateboard trucks axle, just barely. You want to hook the tip of the axle inside the bearings, be sure that you are only letting it touch the bearing and not the wheel.

Now, slowly and gently, pry the wheel at a downward angle. The bearing should pop out of the wheel, but it might not want to right away. So be careful, and take it slow. If you pry on them too hard, you might just damage your bearing. However, if you are planning on replacing your bearings with brand new skateboard bearings, then give it all you got! Generally I recommend being gentle and taking your time, everything should be fine!

Once the bearing pops out, you are done! Repeat with all 8 bearings on your skateboard.