How to Pack a Wheel Bearing with Grease

[Pete Power]

A quick guide on a easy and proven method on repacking Wheel bearings. Can be used for Taper and straight but doesn't work if bearings are sealed
1st up you need new bearings or very clean good condition existing bearings. To clean a used bearing soak in Kero overnight and a quick squirt of Degreaser works well/ Make sure they are dry before greasing. I do not recommend using compressed air.



2nd and most important step is make sure you have a good quality HIGH TEMPERATURE BEARING GREASE. It should tell you on the container suitable for DISC brakes. A 500gm container will pack around 14 to 20 bearings.

I always find it hard to reuse bearings if they are 50,000kms + old for the cost of replacement and the amount of work involved doing them I reckon you may as well replace them. You are always left with spares this way. But budgets and other considerations will make your decision, ok enough dribble..
 Gloves are a good idea but not necesary, clean grease though messy isnt dirty, a bit like KY




With a good blob of grease in your palm and the large face of bearing on the underneath, you simply push the bearing edge into the grease. This forces the grease up between the rollers or balls.



You continue to do this in the same spot until the grease starts oozing out the top between the rollers.



Once you can see grease you slowly rotate the whole bearing while forcing the grease up. As the grease appears rotate bearing, easy eh. Continue until grease has been forced up all the way around, and go around again for good measure. Once your technique improves it only takes a short time to effectively pack a bearing.
Just smear off excess and fit bearing.

[Terry]

Hi,

Great post, should be more of them.

A couple of comments is I also have a nice clean piece of newspaper to work on to avoid picking up junk off the bench and the gloves are the best thing, but rather than the rubber variety pictured try the Blue Nitrile ones found in the cleaning isle in the supermarket, they are a bit stronger and tend not to tear when do this job.

Terry

[Scooty_b]

Hi,

Great post, should be more of them.

A couple of comments is I also have a nice clean piece of newspaper to work on to avoid picking up junk off the bench and the gloves are the best thing, but rather than the rubber variety pictured try the Blue Nitrile ones found in the cleaning isle in the supermarket, they are a bit stronger and tend not to tear when do this job.

Terry

Completely agree Terry, is there a way we could have a section for "how-to's" that only mods can move these sort of posts too? Just an idea.

The other thing I like to do is roll the bearing around once you put it in the cage

Scott

[Fred flinstone]

Peter Power  what I use is a cone shaped Bearing greaser that you screw up with the Bearing between and has a grease niple on top and you just pump the Grease in with a grease gun .
I think that you can Get them off the shelf at Repco or Bursens / supercheap  

[Terry]

Hi,

I have one of the cones that Fred mentions and it does work provided you have wheel bearing grease in your grease gun and the rear bearing is too small to fit so you still need to do it as displayed by PP.

Ike,

There is a FAQ section being developed and I see Newie has already put this one in there. However for something like this which is more of a How To than a FAQq then I will be checking with PP if we can make it an article and post it up to http://www.moke.com.au/how-to-articles

Terry

[Scooty_b]

That's what the geegorys manual is for mav 

Scott

[.]

oh 

ok...

mav.

[Samm]

try the Blue Nitrile ones found in the cleaning isle in the supermarket, they are a bit stronger and tend not to tear when do this job.

Terry

They are a bit tougher Terry and can also be found at your local health care facility

Good idea for a thread there Pete. As they say a photo speaks a thousand words
(or something like that ) and its easy to put the description with actions.

I see where Mav is coming from though with a Go-to-Whoa on repacking/replacing
wheel bearings. I thought I had seen one before but maybe thats a job for someone
handy whose wheel bearings are due for a change.

Samm

[Newie]

 Gloves are a good idea but not necesary, clean grease though messy isnt dirty, a bit like KY

Gloves    When you take them off, don't forget to put your moisturiser on   

Nothing like nice fresh bearing grease to seal up your pores and give your hands that manly scent 

[Samm]

Gloves    When you take them off, don't forget to put your moisturiser on   

Nothing like nice fresh bearing grease to seal up your pores and give your hands that manly scent 

I often wear disposable gloves when I do dirty jobs Newie. Its not a fun job scrubbing my hands clean
for work when grease and dirty like to hide everywhere. The scrubs also dry them out like anything
too and washing them 1000 times a day at work means I have to regularly moisturise. It's a must

Anyways i'll hang my handbag up now

And something on topic- I have not spent much time on Mokewerx myself but it is definitely a place
I stick my head when I have some free time to read and have a looksie.

Samm

[Newie]

Thanks Samm, I knew I'd get a bite from someone 

I used to have to wear gloves back in the days when I wore a suit to work and people expected me to look respectable, but can get away with a lot more now 


For my on topic content, I'll offer this word of advice for packing bearings:

Sometimes (often) worn bearings will try to escape from the race and can leave razor sharp edgeswhere they have been wearing against the casing. With or without gloves, be very careful how you handle old bearings untilyou have all the old grease cleaned off them and can seewhat you are dealing with. I f you plan on repacking and re using them, check them VERY carefully before sliding them hard against the palm of your hand to push the grease in.

[Chippy Dave]

I think it great for people like me

Chippy

[Terry]

Hi,

I have tried to split the posts from this thread that were less related to Packing a Wheel Bearing with grease' and more related to where good articles and other How To type things should  be, MokeWerx or on The Moke Forum. You can find the spawned topic here http://www.moke.com.au/Forum/index.php?topic=7269 however you may still find some references/opinion expressed here, but please reply in the other thread.

This thread still has an extra topic regarding the use of Gloves which could be an interesting topic of its own but was a bit difficult to cut cleanly from the original posts.

Terry

[spider]

Great explainations and pics there Pete, should be very helpful to many. Top points.

I would like to throw in a couple of items.

Don't fill or over-pack the bearing with grease. About 1/2 to 2/3's is all that is needed. If it is packed, it will overheat. One guy I knew, was going through a bearing a day, all because he was filling it. After I suggested only trying about 1/2 of the bearing (not trying to fill the hub) it went for over 6 years.

The other thing I'd like to suggest is to take some time and care to clean the outside of the tin or container of grease before opening it, even a new one.

[Newie]

A couple of comments is I also have a nice clean piece of newspaper to work on to avoid picking up junk off the bench

Terry

The other thing I'd like to suggest is to take some time and care to clean the outside of the tin or container of grease before opening it, even a new one.

As someone who has packed a reasonable number of bearings in their time (tought this was one thing I actually knew how to do  ) the thing I've taken away from this thread is the apparent need for cleanliness. Whilst well aware that contamination of bearing grease would certainly shorten the life of bearings, it has never really occured to me to say..............clean all the old grease etc off my hands which is invariably there by the time you get to the packing stage, clean the container and the work area.

As always, picking stuff up all the time on here. Thanks  guys.