I have been reading about how awful the bearings are on the Rushmore bikes and I have almost 40K miles on mine so went ahead and purchased a Pit Posse bearing removal and install kit and All ***** bearings. After taking the stock bearings out I have drawn a conclusion that I need to stop reading the gloom and doom posts on this forum. They are in perfect (like new) condition. I almost put them back in but already had the new bearings so figured I would just go ahead and replace them. No big deal, I am glad to have new tools but just wanted to let folks know that not all of the bearings go bad at 1000 miles. I never sprayed directly on the bearing with a car wash jet or pressure washer but have been in a lot of rain so there ya go.

 

I had a lot of noise in turns and bought into the bad bearing doom and gloom. Turned out to be my tires. I have a tool and bearings in my toolbox if I ever really need them.

 

 

Yeah, I did the same thing as you at 35K on my '14 Limited. My old bearings were just fine and they were F A G bearings from Motion Industries in Canada. Go figure...

 

Now that ya'll have the tool, you'll never need to replace the bearings ! LOL. like washing your car, makes it rain...

 

These bearings due fail early. And once you pull one of them don't reinstall as you have side loaded the bearing and it's junk..

 

Funny you should mention... While I was doing the 40K service on my bike I decided to do a deep clean while all the parts were off;. Well, I have my first ride since then from Spring to Paris Texas to be in a World Record Harley Parade this weekend and there is a tropical wave that is going to hit Thursday and be here until Sunday. So, I have the bike about as clean as it can get and I will be leaving my house in a torrential downpour. I hand washed my SUV 2 weeks ago, for the first time since I bought it, and it has rained nearly every day since.

So, what you say....all true.

 

Sometimes I reed these forms and just laugh at them without making a comment because nothing good to say, sometimes just cant help myself. It seems to me most just don't know what the hell they are talking about, you can tell the ones that do. To me instead of riding they clean and find things to take apart and most of the time they are way over there heads. So what reed I take with a grain salt.

 

I have a 2015 StreetGlide and I had a rear bearing failure last summer at about 16,000 miles. Over the winter I put new tires on so I changed the front bearings. The old ones looked fine, I pulled the seals out of them and there was lots of grease and there was no reason to change them. So out of the six bearings between the two wheels there was one bad bearing. But that one bad one has me not trusting any of them. From here on in I'll be pulling the wheels off every winter and spinning them by hand to feel them.

 

I've pulled bearings that were going bad, but still felt fine just spinning the wheel. I suspect the reported bearing failures are mostly (all?) Chinese made, with poor quality control; that could explain why only a relatively small percentage fail early. A few guys have posted photos of their failed bearings, and common among them is little or no grease left. I always pull a plastic seal off new bearings to check inside, and except for Timken and AllBalls, they often have a thin line of grease that looks like vaseline only on one side. I clean those and pack with a good brand of synthetic grease and have never had a bearing I installed fail. Its not just Harleys, either, I've bought used Harleys, Hondas and a Yamaha with bearings that needed to be replaced. I suspect pressure washing is the culprit most of the time since these bearings always had really dirty grease but undamaged seals.

Using your Pit Posse: I have one, and it really reduces the turning effort to grease all parts of it that move against each other, like the threads and washers. Knowing how to install the bearings right is critical, bottom out the disk side bearing first on single disk brakes, check your manual for the correct side to do first on dual disks. Make sure you know how to use the tool to install the second bearing so the inner races touch the inner spacer without putting any side pre-load on the bearings, that's another cause for early failure.