Wheel bearings
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Intermediate
Joined: Aug 2011
Posts: 49
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From: Oakdale, MN
Wheel bearings
I am presently doing an end to end maintenance on a 2007 FLHTCUSE. I have the wheels off to remove and replace the bearings. I had to take the wheels to a friends shop so he could remove 1 bearing from each wheel. While he was wrestling with the removal he gave me a short education on the bearings. The manufacturer of the bearings normally puts only 10% of grease in the bearing
Why? Simple, that way they can sell more bearings. He showed me how to remove the seals from the bearing, yes there are 2 on each side, and with the seal off you can pack it with good water proof grease and reinstall the seals. Now you have a bearing with the correct amount of grease in it. To remove the seals use a small pick and pick it up from the inside of the seal, that's by the hole where the axel goes through. Same with the second seal.
HAPPY RIDING!
Why? Simple, that way they can sell more bearings. He showed me how to remove the seals from the bearing, yes there are 2 on each side, and with the seal off you can pack it with good water proof grease and reinstall the seals. Now you have a bearing with the correct amount of grease in it. To remove the seals use a small pick and pick it up from the inside of the seal, that's by the hole where the axel goes through. Same with the second seal.
HAPPY RIDING!
Club Member
Joined: Oct 2011
Posts: 11,175
Likes: 2,483
From: Nor Cal
I am presently doing an end to end maintenance on a 2007 FLHTCUSE. I have the wheels off to remove and replace the bearings. I had to take the wheels to a friends shop so he could remove 1 bearing from each wheel. While he was wrestling with the removal he gave me a short education on the bearings. The manufacturer of the bearings normally puts only 10% of grease in the bearing
Why? Simple, that way they can sell more bearings. He showed me how to remove the seals from the bearing, yes there are 2 on each side, and with the seal off you can pack it with good water proof grease and reinstall the seals. Now you have a bearing with the correct amount of grease in it. To remove the seals use a small pick and pick it up from the inside of the seal, that's by the hole where the axel goes through. Same with the second seal.
HAPPY RIDING!
Why? Simple, that way they can sell more bearings. He showed me how to remove the seals from the bearing, yes there are 2 on each side, and with the seal off you can pack it with good water proof grease and reinstall the seals. Now you have a bearing with the correct amount of grease in it. To remove the seals use a small pick and pick it up from the inside of the seal, that's by the hole where the axel goes through. Same with the second seal.
HAPPY RIDING!
Your 2000-2007 21mm wide bearings are of good quality and many last for over 100k miles, without any more effort on anyone's part
FWIW, If you didn't clean out the existing grease (although fresh & new), then you just contaminated the existing and current grease.
.
Last edited by multihdrdr; May 6, 2017 at 11:16 AM.
Thread Starter
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Intermediate
Joined: Aug 2011
Posts: 49
Likes: 1
From: Oakdale, MN
Bearings
No offense, but that's One Guy's Opinion (although many may hold that) that you just regurgitated
Your 2000-2007 21mm wide bearings are of good quality and many last for over 100k miles, without any more effort on anyone's part
FWIW, If you don't clean out the old (new) grease, then you just contaminated the existing and current grease.
.
Your 2000-2007 21mm wide bearings are of good quality and many last for over 100k miles, without any more effort on anyone's part
FWIW, If you don't clean out the old (new) grease, then you just contaminated the existing and current grease.
.
Club Member
Joined: Jun 2007
Posts: 45,429
Likes: 2,897
From: Bedford UK
If we all paid attention to this sort of stuff we would either never ride our bikes out of fear of failure, or because we were for ever pulling them apart. Thanks for sharing, but ride on and enjoy the experience. Wheel bearings, if and when they fail, will give us plenty of warning.
Road Master
Joined: Dec 2016
Posts: 981
Likes: 182
From: Fairfax County, VA
It doesn't take a lot of grease to provide lubrication. You don't 'fill' your primary case do you? Removing the bearing seal is not a good idea (it's a 'sealed' bearing after all). You probably sacrificed a some the integrity of that seal. The seal itself is what we benefit from. Bearings are damaged by over tightening and not using the right tools. Sounds like your pal did a poor job removing them and if you are installing them without a proper bearing tool you are probably doing additional damage. I never had to wrestle with a bearing and it takes literally seconds to remove and replace them.
Tourer
Joined: Dec 2013
Posts: 472
Likes: 59
From: farmington ny
if you research sealed bearings you will find that not full of grease is by design not cost cutting measures.think about it,pack a sealed bearing full of grease snap the seal back on and ride. things start to heat up and expand.with the bearing full there's no room for things to expand.the seal blows out and you have serious bearing failure.sealed bearing are not like the old tapered bearings.
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