Questionable fit on wheel bearings

[Pursuvant]

Have you seen this thread about OEM wheel bearings having a questionable fit? I heard that small sqeek backing the bike up, and I squeezed the brake lever to see if it affected the sound - but it did not so it's not brake pads.

Up on my front wheel lift there is no sounds turning wheel in either direction, no notchy-feelz or movement - so I guess I'm catching it early before real wear. Only hear it on first roll backwards (engine off) out of garage - if I push it forward and back it will stop sqeek until next days ride.

I expect I will use OEM bearings, and I don't feel any need to hurry, thinking wait till next tire change. 66K miles on a 2019 model.

Opines welcomed! 

 

[Lone Wolf]

2 hours ago, Pursuvant said:

...Up on my front wheel lift there is no sounds turning wheel in either direction, no notchy-feelz or movement - so I guess I'm catching it early before real wear.

I just put new rubber on one of my bikes, and that is my opportunity to "finger" my wheel bearings.
It would have to be pretty severe to diagnose with the wheel still mounted on the bike.

Even though my bearings had no issue, I removed the plastic side pieces of the "sealed" bearing, just like the video below.  My bearings had 40,000 miles and felt great, some grease visible but not much.  

If your bearings are shot - of course replace them. But if not, I used a tube of Quicksilver 8M0071838 High Performance Multi-Purpose Extreme NLGI 2 Marine Grease resulted from deep research to what should be compatible with most any wheel bearing grease.

I put in a small squirt between each visible ball bearing and worked it in. You don't want to fully pack it, maybe 50% which is a hell of a lot more than what was in there, plus it was worked into the parts that needed lube.

NOTE- sometimes you can't access removal of the side member of bearing until you pull seals, but at least you can determine if the bearing is serviceable or shot.

My wheel bearings were beautiful compared to the one in the video, where he is bringing the dead back to life.

Edited April 28, 2023 by Lone Wolf

[shinyribs]

That other thread was interesting. Bearings are so standardized it'd be hard to think there's a batch out there that are off size. I would suspect the wheel manufacturer was loose on machining tolerances before blaming the bearings. 

 

I second the don't fill them with grease comment that Lone Wolf said. Too much grease and the balls can't roll, so they skid. 

 

I wonder if your squeak could be as simple as the dust seal at the axle spacer. A squirt of chain lube would be a quick and easy test before diving in with the wrenches. 

 

 

[wollerms]

6 hours ago, shinyribs said:

I wonder if your squeak could be as simple as the dust seal at the axle spacer. A squirt of chain lube would be a quick and easy test before diving in with the wrenches. 

This has been my squeak in the past. 

[Lone Wolf]

12 hours ago, shinyribs said:

Too much grease and the balls can't roll, so they skid. 

Yep.  And at high RPM with too much grease, it could force the plastic weatherseals out of place.

In that video he has removed the bearing as an example.  If a wheel bearing is serviceable I leave it in place on the wheel, pop off the plastic side seal and add grease.

In that video he works on old lawn equipment, which is less critical than a wheel bearing - but it is amazing to see that rusty bearing come back to life. 

[klx678]

16 hours ago, shinyribs said:

That other thread was interesting. Bearings are so standardized it'd be hard to think there's a batch out there that are off size. I would suspect the wheel manufacturer was loose on machining tolerances before blaming the bearings. 

 

I second the don't fill them with grease comment that Lone Wolf said. Too much grease and the balls can't roll, so they skid. 

I've read about overpacking bearings, that there just needs to be enough grease ofr some lubrication, sliding bearings will cause issues with the bearings.

I don't know for sure, but it seems that a hand press fit would be quite loose, unless the bearings were cold and the hub warm to hot.   I've done bearings by freezing them then warming the seat area with a propane torch and gotten hand fits.  But ya gotta be fast.

[shinyribs]

Yeah, there's an equation for bearing press fit, but generally you can get by with .001" /inch of bore. A thousandth sounds tiny but it's really quite a tight fit. 

[klx678]

There are the three types of fits; clearance, transition, and interference (press) fits.  I will say the fit for something the size of a wheel bearing would probably be bearing to cup diameter +.000/ -.002", which would fall in the press fit range.   Figure I just put a piston in my KLX cylinder and checked clearance, which measured with a blade, was.002" and the piston slid up and down easily.   Lots of information out there, I looked for something that was a bit more related to the specific kind of bearing, I was looking for 6202 fit, but didn't find what I was looking for.  So I fell back to what I remembered.  I do think a transition fit would allow some play since they are more like a +.004/.001" fit and I think the pounding a wheel might get wouldn't work so well with that.  

One interesting one for the OP's situation is to use a retaining compound (aka superglue), something like the cyanoacrylate and similar retaining compounds made for this purpose.  It sounds like they are working with close to a size on size fit and the retaining compound just might be the ticket.  

LocTite (Henkel Adhesives) has a variety.  Click here to see what they have.  Wheel bearings won't run hot and load isn't really all that high.  Could be worth the research to see what some experts say...  contact LocTite and see what they say.  They will be conservative in opinion, not wanting to take any undue risk so if they say it would work then very likely it is a fix.  

Other fix that would cost a lot - have the wheel machined to fit a cup to bring the fit back to size.   

[ElGonzales]

I used LOCTITE 638 several times for worn out aluminum wheel  bearing seats of vintage bikes. Later you can remove the bearing again with heat. It fills 0,25 mm gaps, take a look in the data sheet and follow the instructions. 
It's also recommended by Emil Schwarz, a company that sells undersized steering head bearings, to glue these bearing races inside an oval steering head.
For steel in steel fit  they recommend Loctite 648.

You could feel the radial free play of the bearing inside the seat by hand.

Edited April 30, 2023 by ElGonzales

[Pursuvant]

 @shinyribs @klx678 @Lone Wolf

@ElGonzales

That's some real quality input in this thread - thanks all

 

[klx678]

2 hours ago, ElGonzales said:

I used LOCTITE 638 several times for worn out aluminum wheel  bearing seats of vintage bikes. Later you can remove the bearing again with heat. It fills 0,25 mm gaps, take a look in the data sheet and follow the instructions. 
It's also recommended by Emil Schwarz, a company that sells undersized steering head bearings, to glue these bearing races inside an oval steering head.
For steel in steel fit  they recommend Loctite 648.

You could feel the radial free play of the bearing inside the seat by hand.

Good stuff.   I didn't dig very deep on which locking agent to use, but clearly since you needed to do so you did.  This kind of thing could definitely be handy for some here one time or another.

[Lone Wolf]

Popped off the bearing side covers per that video, using small jewelers screwdriver. 
This caused zero damage to the plastic.

Here you can see a small amount of grease present after 30 years on old Honda 750 with 40,000 miles. Bearing in fantastic shape, felt like new when rotate with finger.

Smooshed in some new grease and worked it into the bearing. Side plastic cover went back on "snap" as work it back in place.

Edited April 30, 2023 by Lone Wolf

[Lone Wolf]

On 4/30/2023 at 10:37 AM, Lone Wolf said:

... old Honda 750 with 40,000 miles. Bearing in fantastic shape

Newly released video shows Ari working on his bike which also had 40,000 miles. 

One of his front wheel bearings was shot, the other one was OK. Inspect with every tire change.
Great overview of how to replace wheel bearings and what to look for.