Front wheel bearings

[Zombie Master]

1984 R100 with Snowflake wheels

Just had new tires installed, and I'm putting the wheels back on.

Working on the front wheel, I have new wheel bearing seals, so I'm thinking that I should re-lube the front wheel bearings and replace the seals.

Do I:
just force the top hat bearings through the seal with a screwdriver

clean the bearings

re-lube the bearings

install new wheel bearing seals

Does this sound right?

There are some confusing cautions in my book, telling me not to remove the bearings unless I am replacing them.

I'm thinking these cautions are about another type of wheel.

Thanx!

[gspd]

There are some confusing cautions in my book, telling me not to remove the bearings unless I am replacing them.

Once the retaining nut, the seal and the tophat spacer are removed, the tapered bearing should fall out.
The outer bearing ring will remain in the wheel.
There is no reason to remove it unless it needs to be replaced.

Clean the bearing with a toothbrush in a bowl of gas then gently blow it dry with compressed air and repack it with fresh grease. Resist the urge to put it on your finger and spin it dry with compressed air as this can cause the rollers to come out of their cage.

[Zombie Master]

There are some confusing cautions in my book, telling me not to remove the bearings unless I am replacing them.

Once the retaining nut, the seal and the tophat spacer are removed, the tapered bearing should fall out.
The outer bearing ring will remain in the wheel.
There is no reason to remove it unless it needs to be replaced.

Clean the bearing with a toothbrush in a bowl of gas then gently blow it dry with compressed air and repack it with fresh grease. Resist the urge to put it on your finger and spin it dry with compressed air as this can cause the rollers to come out of their cage.

Where is the retaining nut?

[gspd]

Where is the retaining nut?

ooops! my error.
Snowflake wheels don't have that retaining nut.

[Zombie Master]

Oh good...I thought I was losing it LOL!

[ME 109]

Origin seals? I can't remember if you said.
You'll need to booger them to get the top hat and bearing out. The rubber ones can let the top hat out but it's not ideal.
How do they feel an the axle? Remember these bearings are supposed to do umpteen billions of miles.
You might be a billion off needing maintenance.
The metal body seal looks like a good candidate for a drilled hole and self tapping screw, to pry out?

[barryh]

Confession time.

I've removed the seals carefully and re-used them because I had no spares. That means you do have to pull the top hats through to gain access for use of a seal removal tool. if you don't have a proper tool then an appropriately sized open ended spanner can be made to work perfectly well without damaging the seal.

[Rob Frankham]

There is a greasing tool available that allows you to add grease to the wheel bearings on all pre '85 airheads (well almost all... not the R65LS front which is a ball bearing but all models that use the taper roller bearngs). There are various variations but essentially it consists a metal plug with two 'O' rings and a grease nipple (zerk fitting on this forum I guess) at one end. There is a drilling from the fitting that emerges between the two 'O' rings. With the wheel out, simply push the tool into the axle hole and pump grease in. The 'O' rings stop it escaping directly into the hub and it is forced into the bearing itself pushing old grease out. No need to disturb bearings or grease seals.

The only downside is that the used grease tends to accumulate in the hub so you have a bit of a messy job when you do next remove the bearings.

All in all, I wouldn't recommend it's use on dirt bikes where there is a really good chance of grit getting past the grease seals but, on a road bike, used regularly, it works very well and saves a lot of bother removing seals and bearings every time you want to grease them.

Rob

[barryh]

Is this it.

tool1.JPG (44.51 KiB) Viewed 928 times

[Kurt in S.A.]

^^^ The above is from Duane Ausherman's website.

Kurt