17,500 miles on my 2009 FLHTCU. Front wheel bearings were replaced yesterday.

 

Same thing happened to me, this is not new here is my post with pictures.

https://www.hdforums.com/forum/touri...ase-marks.html

and more

https://www.hdforums.com/forum/softa...g-failure.html

more

https://www.hdforums.com/forum/touri...g-failure.html

more

https://www.hdforums.com/forum/touri...g-failure.html

the naysayers will say they have not had the problem thats fine, but that does not mean there's not a poblem, if it was 100 percent there would be a forced recall.

I just wonder if anyone has gone down and it was blamed on rider error and since the bike was in bad shape due to the accident no one could determine that the rider suffered a catastrophe failure before the crash that actually caused the accident?

My ride is stock and if I had after market pipes I would have never heard the problem, I was able to hear the problem before feeling it, not sure what would have happened next if I didn't hear it first.

 

I just had a front wheel bearing failure today, 17k on a 09 egc. sharted to squeal and the front end started to grap. The dealer replaced it under warranty. I mentioned I had read there were problems whith wheel bearing, and was told don't believe everything you read. Could have been a serious problem

 

As someone else mentioned, several of the"08's" had this problem. My front bearings went out at 14k. Like you, I expected better wear than that. Just glad I was not a trip when they were discovered during tire change. They were shot.

 

Lets see now....let me try and remember where I have heard about bearing failure before. Okay...now I remember....it was the outer cam bearing failures on all the early model TC-88's.

Nobody ever forced a recall for that and nobody will be able to force a recall on this either. At least on the old timken tapered bearings, you could stick some grease in there every 10-15,000 miles and they would run forever. Just do it every time you changed the tire...it was like clockwork. With the sealed bearings...you never know when they will take a crap and can only hope you feel, or hear them before they do.

I lost one this past spring that had 31,000 miles on it. When I replaced the others...they were all leaking grease past the seals, so it was just a matter of a few thousand (maybe a few hundred) miles before they would have went south.

 

I think your find that most of the failed bearings were on bikes with cast wheels. From what I have experienced first hand and heard from HD Techs, there is grit left inside the wheel axle bore after machining the wheel that is not cleaned out prior to the bearing install and the grit is tearing the bearings up. QC at its best!

There was enough grit/sand in my front wheel that you could hear it moving around by tilting the wheel from side to side (off of the bike that is).

I guess it makes sense but I still can't figure out how grit, etc can affect a sealed bearing.

 

I am with you on the doubt. Sounds like a load of crap to me. Yes...it is a sloppy QC to have all that in there, but like you said....a "sealed" bearing means just what is says it means. I can see where it would shoot-down a standard ball bearing, but not a sealed ball bearing. The better bearings have metallic seals. The ones I removed had plastic seals.

 

At 42K miles, front bearings shot on the 09 street glide. Did not know it until the bike was on the rack.

 

Got a friend with over 120k on his 03 RK, same bearings that came in it from the factory.
These were the good sealed bearings used in all Touring Models thru 07. Starting in 08 the korean made problems started. The really sad part is the axle appears to be the same size as the earlier one thru 07. You have to take a measuring instrament to tell the difference. Only .013 thousands smaller. The 08 up is 25mm instead of the 1" used thru 07. Lots and lots of failures will occur with these cheap Korean ones. Beware!!!
The other crazy thing to watch out for is this. If someone sells you wheels off a 2000 thru 07 you can unknownly install these on the 08 up and the smaller axle will look exactly the same and will go on in. But you will have .013 thousands slop.
This is very very unsafe and HD should be ashamed of this careless unsafe Act!!! My 2 Cents

 

Jim, I'm glad you had such luck with your '08! But you're dead wrong about the @08 front wheel bearings. Our fleet of '08 FLHTP's had multiple front wheel bearing failures, all 28 of 'em. The front bearing on my bike failed @ 1400 miiles and continued to fail 5 additional times over the next 10,000 miles, until our mechinic came up witha "fix" for the problem. He replace the smaller right bearings witha second set of ABS bearings (after modifying the spacer) and the bike's been fine since. He did this on all the other EG's in our police fleet with similar results.

The fact is that in '08 HD had BIG problems with their front wheel bearings! Jim, I hope you conttinue to have good service with your EG, but best have those bearings checked. The problem is very real.