How to maintain your bearings

[J57ltr]

Here are the tools you will need:

A pick, utility knife blade, X-acto knife blade, needle or suitable tool.

A solvent that leaves no residue, I like to use B-12 Chemtool carb and choke cleaner, Brake Cleaner, but Motor spray will work also. Really anything in a spray can with a tube.

A small vice is nice to hold small bearings.

Compressed air source for drying the solvent and blowing out any debris.

Shop towels (the blue ones are good), or anything that doesn't produce a lot of lint.

Lube. I use a 20wt oil in a pen oiler, use what you prefer.

Time. It took me about 30 minutes to complete these 2 bearings but if you have more it doesn't add much time for each. This included cleaning a place on a table, taking pics and the actual work.

First I start out with the bearings as is. I use the vice to hold the bearing and the pick to remove the retaining ring that holds the shield in place. Do this by slipping the edge of the pick in the groove and hooking the retaining ring and pulling it towards the inner race, then slide it up and pull the ring out. Be careful as it can fly off like an E clip and it'll be real hard to find.

The retaining ring looks like a ring that has been cut diagonally. You want to slide the pick under the side that is sharp side close to the inner race.

Once you have the retaining ring off one side do the other side and other bearings. Remove the shields as well.

I used the cap off of the B-12 and filled it so that it would cover the bearings. I left them for a few minutes and shook it a little bit. While I was waiting I cleaned the shields and retaining rings, with a shop towel.

Take the bearings out and spray them with the cleaner you are using by spraying through one side then the other. Then I dump out the cap and place them back into the cap refilled with clean solvent. Remove them and spin them by hand a few revolutions and place them back into the solvent.

After that I remove them and spray them out again, then use compressed air to dry all the solvent out of the bearing.

I use a 5mm axle and check the side to side play on the bearing, if it moves too much (check against a new bearing), replace it.

If by this time you still have a "gritty" bearing it could be because a piece of dirt got between a bearing and the one of the balls which causes it to stop and can do one of 2 things. Cause the inner race to spin on the shaft, or cause the ball to drag through the race causing spalling in which case if the race is damaged it's too late and time to replace it.

Using the pin oiler I place a small amount of oil at 3 places 120* apart in the groove of the outer race, then spin the bearing by hand a few revs in each direction. If you use too much oil it will leak out and cause dirt to be attracted to it.

When replacing the shield set it in place and get it located into the bearing and use your pick to position it. Then take the retaining ring and slide the opposite side you took it out into the groove and slide it around until it is completely snapped into place.

Jeff

I will probably edit this post and put the pics on Photobucket as soon as I remember what my account is.

[J57ltr]

More pics

[What's_nitro?]

Nice tut. Very good info.

[J57ltr]

Thanks, I had a little more info, but my parents came buy to take us to dinner for my Bday and when I came back and tried to post it it gave me an error about a token being expired. I should have at least cut and pasted it into notepad (new laptop haven't gotten everything loaded yet). But I'll add info as it comes to me in the next couple. One thing I forgot to mention is that even that these bearings look sealed they are not they are actually shielded, a sealed bearing will contact the inner race and have more drag, these are shields as they don't really link the inner race, that's why they still get a lot of dirt in them. I have some at work that are sealed and shielded so I'll take a pic of those to illustrate the dif.

Jeff