How-To: Build Your Own Roller Spring Perches

I started on my roller perches today after having the kit and a spare set of perches laying around for more than a year...and it was an interesting experience. I learned a few things that I thought might be worth sharing, so I'll try to lay it out here.

My Tips:
1) Use hand tools. A hacksaw and a hammer will be your best friends here.
2) Use the vise, Luke.
3) Tape up the ends.

To build these, you have to cut a big notch in the perch and pull out the shaft assembly, take the metal cover off the shaft, the get the bushing off the shaft. Then you can actually put in the roller bearing parts.

With that said, let's get down to the details...


I cut out both sides of one perch in 5 minutes with a hacksaw and knocked the metal off with a hammer. No burning rubber, no sparks, and it flat-out looks nice. I started out using an angle grinder, just like the directions said. That mangled the living crap out of the thing and got the rubber burning something fierce, plus it was kinda slow. Hacksaw: 1 - Grinder: 0

BTW I didn't have to cut out much. I cut a wide V that was more or less uncovered the top of the bushing sleeve. I also decided to cut both sides, which made things EASY and won't be an issue later on. Some how-to's only show cutting one side; I don't exactly understand how that's supposed to work? My Scott Drake perches had one side crimped, and that didn't need nearly as much cut away and seemed to come out much more easily.

Next, I had to get the shaft and bushing out. So, I chucked it up horizontally in the vise...but the thing didn't want to come out, so I finally crammed the prying end of the hammer in there and pried. Presto! I'm done! One one, it decided to fight a little more, so I just used the hammer to loosen it up and just grabbed it and yanked it out the "open" end.

Then, I had to get the metal cover off the bushing. I chucked the bushing assembly in the vise horizontally. Then, I took the grinder and ground a notch lengthwise, then chisled it the rest of the way though. Then, I flipped it over and repeated on the other side, and when I grabbed an old screwdriver and started prying, the sleeve fell off in two big pieces.

So now, we've got  the shaft out, but it's still covered in molded-on bushings. So, I sliced off a bunch of rubber with a razor blade in one spot and used the trusty wire wheel to take it down to bare metal. Once I had it to shiny metal in that spot, I went after the edges of spot with the wire wheel and "grew" that spot until the whole thing was clean. An extra light touch and the edge of the wire wheel thinned out the thick spots in the rubber nicely.

So, now we've got them apart. On to (rollerizing them).