HD bearings are junk ! Anything but HD is good advice.

 

Whatever you get, pop a plastic seal off and check inside. Whenever there's just a thin string of clear stuff on one side, I clean that off and grease with a quality synthetic. I've gotten bearings that had plastic spacers, and I throw them away, seen too many grinding up. Lots of youtube videos showing how to do it, and some of them are wrong. On a single brake disk wheel, the disk side always goes on first and all the way in, that positions the disk in the caliper. The other bearing goes in till it does not pinch the inner spacer, yet has no play, otherwise you side load the inner bearing races and they'll fail sooner or later. Any doubts, ask on this forum, plenty of guys here with more experience than me and willing to help.

If you put "wheel bearings" in search, in the blue bar at the top, you'll find lots of threads on this.

 

When I had my '09 FXD, I went through wheel bearings like crazy. Kept exploding on me after only 15-20k miles. I tried the stock, All *****, and a couple others I can't remember at the moment. The first two times the bearings were put in by a dealership, the third by an indie and the last by me.

I personally would NOT get the All *****...they lasted the least long of all I got. I never got the chance to try Timken (Made in America), but it's what I use now in my '98 FXD and would have used in my '09 if I'd thought about it at the time (money was a good deal more of a factor at the time, so I always looked for 'cheap' instead of quality).

 

I would use the Timken over all other except they do not make an ABS bearing .

 

7000 mi HD chinese wheel bearings shot.
Anything but moblo IMO

 

On the basis that when I changed out the front wheel bearings on a 2008 XL1200C and that when I put in the bearing dimensions it came back with a generic bearing number I cannot see on non ABS bikes HD have a special bearing made.

The bearings are sealed and should contain enough grease for their service life. To pull a shield and put in extra grease is probably going to result in the bearing failing sooner than it should.

I haven't looked up bearings for bikes with ABS.

The bearing has a seat and it should bottom out on it. If the spacer is sized correctly it will not put any load on the inner race.

HD's instructions when using their installation tool:
Hold hex end of threaded rod and turn nut to install wheel
bearing. Bearing is fully seated when nut can no longer
be turned.

 

Ball bearings have no business being used in a wheel...if you ride hard you will always be changing them regardless of brand ...

Popping the seal out, and checking that they actually have grease in them is a good idea...

If they still had tapered roller bearings like pre-99 did...they would outlast the bike with minor maintenance...

 

I hope you are not in the medical field!

 

I am clueless as to what you mean. If this is an only in Alabama thing I would sure like to know what you mean?

It has been shown that putting extra grease in a bearing doesn't do it any good and can cause it to overheat.

 

While it is possible in some applications where the grease cannot escape...for too much grease to cause the bearing to overheat...

In most cases the grease will burp out and cause no problems...if you have ever popped the seal out of a sealed bearing...you would know that most have very little grease...

I have been doing maintenance for 25 years...and have never seen a bearing fail because of too much grease...but have seen hundreds fail for lack of it.

Here is one weekend of bearing change-out for me...