Im not getting what you are on about.
Perhaps i did not explain propperly.
The shaft has a hole in it that is threaded to 3/8 unf. If its 7/8
If its 1" it will have a 7/16 unf thread in it.
The leading edge of the hole has a slight inwards taper too it.
The nose of the shaft on the puller will have some sort of point on it or a tapered insert.
Depending on your puller it may have a shaft thats fatter than the bore of the boss your are trying to remove.
Or in the case of my pullers, (a 4" stanley brand 3 leg & a no name 6" two/three leg) have a smaller shaft and a taper on the point that is too sharp to locate in the slight taper in the hole in the crank without posing a risk of damaging the thread.
I would rather avoid damaging the thread at all cost. Best way to do that is to fill it with a bolt.
So you then need a 3/8unf bolt of sufficent length that will thread a good distance into the hole in the crank to avoid thread damaging problems but then allow the full length of the boss to come off the crank.
Why the extra bolt length?, because if you want to reuse the bolt you need to avoid it bottoming in the hole and burring the thread on the end of the bolt and the best way to do this is too put a spanner on the head of the bolt and let it rest against a leg of the puller. Then when you wind the screw on the puller you can stop the bolt rotating.
That is then your friction point, where the taper on the screw shaft meets the bolt. Bearings still have friction points, and side loading a 'ball' bearing is not what it is designed to do. I think a torrington bearing is the one designed for this application.
Im not sure how you were using your one single ball bearing.
The bolt i have is about 2.5 or 3 inches in length and i have drilled a slight point into the top for the shaft of the puller to centre on. I would have easy used it 20+ times.
I used to use a 3/8 nut and hold the nut on the bolt head with the spanner, half on the bolt head, half on the nut. It worked ok but was a bit fiddly.
I have only ever had one boss that i could not get off with the puller. That was on a Rover super 4 20", the big boss with the 5/16 blade plate bolts. It was rusted solid. Im sure that was before i bought the pullers i have now.
Using a steering wheel type puller, You would need 3x long 1/4unf or 6mm bolts.
Im not so sure this would work on a tight one.
The other trick is to clean the shaft above the boss, lube it well then drift the boss up, clean the shaft where the boss was then slide it off.
This can work well.
Time wise, its easier to use a puller. Well thats what ive found.
