Getting Inserts Out of Omnis

Hello forum!

I was wondering if anybody out there had a reliable means of replacing the plastic shaft inserts that come on omni wheels with the metal kind used for high strength hears. We have been able to do it before, albeit with quite some difficulty. Any tips?

Boil the wheels :wink:

We used a heat gun to loosen up the plastic, then tore away one of the inserts with a small phillips screw driver until there was room to insert 4 axles into the previous insert space and applied force with a hammer on those to knock out the other side.

Geez, so there really isn’t an easy way to do it. Oh well haha, for now we’ll manage with destroying the insert. Thank you both!

I stuck an Allen wrench into the hole and just pushed the insert on the other side out.

+1 I do this all the time although sometimes a little hammering is required.

Thats what we intended on doing, but on the newer omni wheels the inserts seem to be fused to the plastic. We ended up destroying the inside of the insert, as well as the outside.

I took an axle and a hammer and chiseled out the inside of the insert. The glue makes it not slide out easily so instead I scrapped bits out. It works pretty well because both are squares.

I wish vex would just save the trouble and put in martial inserts for us.:wink:

Whichever, vex employee reads this, please pass this information onto the parts department. I would greatly appreciate this.:slight_smile: thanks.