They all look like roller bearings though not sealed ball bearings.

I purchased a named brand in the hope I got some quality.

 

I've actually talked to engineers that said all a bearing needs is a microscopic film of grease on the *****, but I've also talked to engineers that didn't have a closed mind and realized that tiny film eventually throws off into non-contact areas and the bearing will burn up. You need a fresh feed of grease to replenish that film, somewhat like oil in an engine. When I grease a sealed ball bearing, I pack it on one side till it comes out the other (seals removed) and then wipe the excess off both sides with a finger, down to the high points of the ball cage. This leaves room for the grease pushed out of the caged ***** by tunneling through, but enough to flow back when heated. Wheel bearings aren't really turning all that fast at highway speeds anyway, and automotive bearings have been completely packed for decades with no problems. Really high speed ball bearings not only don't want an excess of grease, but special high speed grease or even oil, but Harleys don't have any of those other than oil fed bearings in the motor and transmission.

I've seen many bearings, including wheel bearings on various products that had what looked like a string about 1/16th inch diameter of translucent stuff that looks just like vaseline applied on one side of the ball cage. Some of this will get slung out to the outer race when the bearing spins up and some of it gets transferred to the ***** that way. Put one of these in a Harley and wonder how far the ***** carry all that weight without any grease on the ***** before what little reaches them does. Guaranteed limited life bearings. That's why I check every bearing I install and often clean them out and grease them with a known quality grease - and not just a 1/16" string of it. I've changed thousands of bearings and have actually popped seals on a few that had no grease at all in them. I'll never trust Chinese quality control, and from what I've seen, they aren't getting better and some other countries are getting worse.

The inner spacer comment can be both right and wrong depending on the tool or technique used. You don't bottom out the second bearing in the bore, you bottom out the inner race against the inner spacer. You can't do this by just pushing on the inner race, the outer will be pulled by the ***** and end up with a sideways pressure fit against the *****, and will fail way too soon as the ***** and side of the race grind against each other. Same for pushing the outer race in till it stops, the inner race will grind against the *****. Two ways to avoid this and have the ***** centered in both races; easiest is a bearing puller/installer that evenly pushes against both races at the same time. This would normally be a flat plate against the bearing - hold a straight edge across a new bearing and it should lay flat across both races. Without this kind of tool, using something that only pushes against the outer race (pushing only the inner will never work without damage), you'd have to carefully get it really close, and then barely move it till contact, pulling the tool off and checking clearance before each movement. I've done it this way, and it's tedious and time consuming, the proper tool is worth the money. Harleys do not have inner spacers correctly dimensioned for both bearings to bottom out in the bore; I don't really know the reason, but I suspect it's because the wheels aren't all made that perfect, and this can give leeway for installing aftermarket wheels. And probably a good thing when you start using Chinese bearings and wheels that don't have the tolerances we're used to...

Before mounting the wheel on the bike, if you have a straight edge just long enough to lay across the bearing's outer race, it should evenly touch the inner race also if the bearing is correctly installed. If that inner race sits higher or lower than the outer, you have a side load on the bearings. Or a wheel bearing that's different than any I've run across, another reason to check this before you put it in.

 

6400 miles for me...

 

Thank you sir! Learn something everyday here on HDF.

 

Oh hell! I didn't know that. What a shame. I wonder why they don't?

 

Those are the desk jockeys that don't know a wrench from their ***. I deal with them on a regular basis at my work and they get on my nerves.

 

Very interesting information. Thanks...

 

Everyone who has a tool like this (most if not all) has "Both" tools whether they know it or not.


Reason? ... Manufacturing "Tolerances" ... and not just wheels (spacer sleeves and bearings play a part). There's no reason to ask 3 manufacturers (and pay the god-awful cost) to hold so tight of tolerance to make the bearings "bottom" at exactly the same point that bearing touches the spacer sleeve. It would really serve no purpose ... no functional difference of having the spacer sleeve longer. "Tolerance Stack-up" always has to be considered.


Cullmanco, if this is for your 2013 FLHX, it uses a Bearing Industry Std bearing #6205-2rs (although some manufactures may use a different numbering system). You can use any quality bearing manufacturer you wish... Timkin/fafnir, SKF, Nachi, Koyo, F.A.G. INA, All *****, etc. on and on

EVERY ball bearing manufacturer makes that bearing



EDIT: To add, the above is in reference to Sealed Ball Bearings as they come as a complete bearing Assembly from the manufacturer who controlled and maintained all of the bearing tolerances.

In contrast, a Tapered Roller Bearing comes as a Inner Race/Roller/Cage Assy, but with a Separate outer race (manufacturer now can't control the total bearing assy). Still there are Manufacturing tolerances on the Wheel, spacer sleeve like before, but now rely on Assembly of the wheel to set the End Play of the bearings with "Shims".

More Time (assembly) = More Cost ... Here comes the Sealed Bearing (2000-later)

.

 

Has anyone tried repacking their bearings?

Cleaning the old grease is no problem. Metal cages or not, using a cheap syringe to inject fully synthetic wheel bearing grease seems viable to me. I've done a few this way and the red Mobil synthetic stuff seems to work good.

 

I've repacked roller wheel bearings, but ***** from a Harley, hell no. If you have a reason to get to them, it's a good time to put new ones in. In less critical and stressful areas, I have re-used and re-greased ball bearings. Cleaning the old grease out is a good idea for a few reasons. I clean all the grease out of new sealed bearings when I'm not satisfied with them because I don't mix greases; sometimes it works, sometimes not and you seldom know what the manufacturer used. I've used red Mobil One synthetic and it seems to be pretty good stuff, but if you see red grease in a bearing you didn't put there, don't assume it's Mobil; there are other red greases such as Chevron Starplex and Mobil 28 that are hygroscopic, meaning they mix with water, which some engineers seem to think is great, the water will be in suspension and not have droplets settle out that cause rust. Wrong, so wrong, the grease eventually saturates (you can tell because the dark red turns pink) and everything it touches will rust - I've seen hundreds of bearings ruined by running hygroscopic grease too long without changing it, and locked up due to rust. So continue cleaning out the old grease, even if it's in a new bearing you think just needs a little more. And some greases are just incompatible, do undesirable things if you mix the wrong two.

For those of us with trailers, and as an example of what kind of grease to use and what not - OEM grease in many trailer bearings is Chevron Starplex. If you run it through a hard rain, probably a good idea to clean and grease their wheel bearings. Here's what one of my trailers with Starplex looked like with probably less than 100 miles on it, no rain, just sitting outside, had owned it a couple months at this time. Was checking it for a 1200 mile trip and really glad I did. One of the bearings already had a little surface rust, even though it was packed with this stuff. I've seen many bearings with Mobil 28 looking like this, too.



Cleaned and packed with Mobil One. That and Starplex look the same, new.



The thread is about sealed bearings, but if any of you do run into older Harleys with the best ever, Timken rollers, you'll find shims and a spacer (to the left in the photo). My manual says install the wheel and measure wheel sideplay, but it's more accurate to stack it all up on the axle and measure with a dial indicator. Either way, do it dry, you won't get an exact measurement with a well greased bearing and any on the shims. This bearing has over 50,000 miles and I'd still put another 50,000 on it with more trust than a new ball bearing. Too bad it's not an easy thing to switch ***** to rollers. It's probably a production thing like Multi said, definitely takes a little more time to set up a roller bearing versus just squeezing in a ball. Wish all my bikes took that extra time...