Rear Wheel Bearings

[jbfla]

Since I had the rear wheel removed to change the tire, I thought I would check the rear wheel bearings.

I was concerned because of SpudRider's previous report:

http://www.chinariders.net/showthread.php?t=16320

It has been a long time since I have changed wheel bearings, so I watched a few videos on YouTube.

This is one of the longer videos, but shows the "wobble" test, and how to remove the rear wheel.



My rear wheel passed the wobble test, but I wanted to check the amount of grease in the bearings.

...and I was ready if I needed to replace the bearings:

There are 5 bearings in all, two on each side of the hub, and one in the sprocket carrier:




I have the same wheel bearing remover tool as in Spud's thread, and used it very carefully because I wanted to reuse the bearing if it was OK.

In puts all the removal force on the inner race, which can easily damage the bearing.

This is one of the outer bearings.



It had plenty of grease, but I added more before replacing the bearing cover.




Here's the bearing in the sprocket carrier:




And one of the inner bearings:




IMO, all the bearings had enough grease, and since I added more, I decided to use them until the next tire change.

However, the bearings in the swing arm were another story.

They were completely dry, no grease on the sleeve bushing, or the needle bearings:






I coated the needle bearings and sleeve bushing with plenty of grease and remounted the swing arm.

The new wheel bearings will be saved until next time.

.....and it didn't occur to me to drill and tap for grease zerks until after I had everything reassembled....

I feel it was worthwhile to check the wheel and swing arm bearings.

jb