sealed rear wheel bearings ??

[B@man]

Is Anyone else running sealed rear wheel bearings ??

Following the play in the rear bearings issue from 3 years ago I fitted one of these sealed bearings, during the rebuild I found that it's now got headache which was previously blamed on the bearing moving in the housing, however having removed the oil seals and put the hub back together on the bench it's possible to see the inner bearing race moving against the integral oil seal.

I've tried to source a OEM style SKF bearing which doesn't have the integral seals but they are on 4 - 5 week lead time, if I'd know before Christmas I could have ordered one, hindsight and all that, I have another "sealed" bearing in stock and I'm considering removing the seals and packing it with LM grease rather than rely on the machine oil or whatever they put in them, after all the bearing housing has external oils seals anyway.

Anyone else had problems with these sealed bearings ? I don't think the one I've removed could have done more than 5K !

[superwedge]

I put two new Granada ones in my one,when I renew it all been great,they are sealed ones,

[marcus1875]

I've just put sealed ones in as well. Not driven it yet though, will be interesting to find out how long they last, difference etc.

Marcus

[Wedg1e]

You don't usually need to remove the seals to get more grease into sealed split-race bearings, there's normally enough play in the inner races that you can slide them apart and use a finger to force some grease into the gap.
I did this with the new (sealed, allegedly NSK though I have my doubts) bearings I've fitted to my rear hubs.

[B@man]

Cheers Ian,

I'll look into that, I ended up with two bearings one from Ebay and a second from TVR car parts, I can't remember which one I actually fitted though, I'll check if it's possible to do as you suggest, if not the seals will be removed.

[stevoj]

OK chaps, been greasing my back end nipples so to speak this week and this post got me wondering, are there any i should be doing in this rear bearing area, or are you guys talking about manually prepacked when using open bearings?

Cheers

[Wedg1e]

stevoj said:

OK chaps, been greasing my back end nipples so to speak this week and this post got me wondering, are there any i should be doing in this rear bearing area, or are you guys talking about manually prepacked when using open bearings?

Cheers

Yes, packing new ones. There is no facility to add grease once the hub unit's assembled.

[adam quantrill]

I occasionally wondered if it would be worth installing a grease nipple. It would have to mount on the hub carrier and have a matching hole drilled through any replacement bearings installed.

Then grease could be squirted in maybe once a year and any excess would come out of the seals, taking any dirt and grindings with it. Also if the hub is full of grease then less chance of water and crud getting in.

One challenge would be to line up the holes on the installation of a new bearing - you wouldn't want massive holes so as not to weaken the bearing shell.

[Wedg1e]

adam quantrill said:

One challenge would be to line up the holes on the installation of a new bearing - you wouldn't want massive holes so as not to weaken the bearing shell.

The bearing shells are case-hardened so you'd have fun drilling them... Also the only point you could really drill through would be at the thickest part, the web between the two rows of balls.
Otherwise it's a great idea