Wheels Wheel bearings

fishhead

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Nov 20, 2008
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Cocoa, Florida
Does anyone know of a supplier of high quality wheel bearings ?
My Schwinn with a HT engine seems to eat up the rear wheel bearings, but looking at the bearings - it's no wonder - the cheapest, weakest, a real POS.

Also, any thoughts on endplay ? How much endplay ... or preload ?

Thanks all.
 
Have you checked with any bike shop ?
Like all parts some good some bad.
Industrial parts and repair shop ? Northern Tool ?
Use search box . Rear hubs. Coaster brake. there is a link to a totortial that is great.
With all the different makes and types it is best to check and make sure you are working on right one.
Good Luck.
Welcome to the site.
 
I just went to a bearing supply house and bought a bag of 50 1/4'' loose ball bearings for 15 dollars i believe. It is enough to do both front and rear wheels.
cheers
 
Are they sealed bearings? I'd be somewhat surprised if they were on a Schwinn but that would be the only reason to be looking for that source.

I guess until you answer that I wouldn't know but my guess would be they are caged hub bearings with nuts and cones. If that is the case an upgrade would be to go to loose ball bearings of a good quality and good grease.
 
I would find some bearnings made in US or Japan -- that's quality stuff

good bearnings with good grease should last a long time

how is the inside race looking -- check with finger nail and the old eye ball

ride that thing
 
loose ball bearings ?

Happy Vally -

Do you mean to remove the cage the ball bearing seat in ?

Does one just grease the raceway and shove balls in without the cage ?

Thanks guys.....
 
if one is to be rid of cage -- it will take extra ((more)) bearnings to fill
rather than taking bearnings out of cages -- best to buy loose bearnings

just grease up the race and fill with proper size bearnings

MM
 
The problem ?

I was puzzled why I was eating up wheel bearings. I have a coaster brake hub. When I first made the installation it was necessary to enlarge the ID of the drive sprocket so that it would fit on a coaster brake hub. When I opened up the ID it fit snug on the hub.

Today I disassembed the sprocket and hub and found the bearing raceway wall was cracked. I suppose that the tension from the chain drive to the sprocket was being transfered on the raceway wall ( in addition to the spokes) and eventually cracked it.

I guess I will get a new hub and increase the ID of the drive sprocket alot more than I had it before.
 
Sounds like you found the root of your bearing problem, a bad race.
I thought I'd mention you might be able to replace the race without needing to replace the whole hub.
You need a specific tool for the job but most any bike shop should be able to do that.

On the caged bearing question: the low end bike companies use caged bearing to make assembly faster and the bearing quality is usually low. I get rid of them and replace with high quality loose balls that sell for a few bucks for a hundred.
You need to use exactly the same diameter loose balls as were the caged, and you will replace them until the race is filled leaving a one ball or less gap.

Use a high quality bearing grease, white Teflon is good and fill the race cup.
That will hold the new ball bearings in place as you manipulate them to get the spacing correct.

hth
 
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another problem can be if you make the bearing to tight it wont matter how much good grease you have is or the quality of the bearings, over tightening will burn them out.
 
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