I found out that the insided ball bearing of my 91 honda accord distributor is shot and was told by honda that they don't fix it, they just replace the entire distributor. Since paying $450 bucks seems ridiculous for one worn out part I ended up ordering a bearing from NACHI in Toronto for $53 bucks instead and need to put it in tonight.

So the question is this: How hard is it to replace an old worn out ball bearing that's on a 12mm shaft with the newly purchased bearing? I heard that you're not supposed to hammer it in (apparently the shock can damage the bearing) but what else is there to know? OR, should I just pay a machine shop twenty bucks and have them do it for me? I got a fairly well equipped shop but just because I've never done I'm a bit hesitant...

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated...

You can remove the old bearing in any manner that gets the job done, without causing damage to the rest of the distributor; whether you use a puller; an arbor press; or hammer and punch. Clean up the bearing surface of the shaft with fine sandpaper. Apply some lubricant on the shaft to make assembly easier. When pressing or tapping the bearing onto the shaft, apply force only to the inner bearing race (the one in contact ith the shaft). If you beat or press on the outer race, you will put small flat spots (Brinell) on the ball bearings that will cause premature failure. When installing the shaft in whatever housing holds the outer race, gently tap/press on the outer race only. Good luck.

53$?? You got ripped off a lot! I bought an SKF bearing that is good to 17k rpms for 4$ and installed it. It works fine.

Here is a write-up I did: http://thezcr.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12945

53$ is quite a lot ripping off :S
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