| Author | Message | ||
     Kalali |
This morning as I began riding the bike I heard a faint squeaking noise coming from the brake side of the front wheel. Sounds like a wheel bearing but can't be 100% sure. Put the bike back in the garage. What's the best way to verify a bad bearing? Side to side movement in the wheel? Haven't looked at the manual yet but how difficult is it to replace the bearing? Do I need to take the brake rotor/carrier off the wheel? Do I need a a special tool to take the bearing out and does it need to be pressed in? Could it be that it just needs to be packed with some grease? Now assuming I don't "feel" any side to side movement in the wheel, can I just spray (using the little tube) some lubricant right around where the bearing turns and see if the noise goes away? About 18K miles on the bike and PM wheels. Sorry about all the questions and thanks in advance. | ||
| Jramsey |
Pull the wheel. Stick finger in bearing hole and rotate. At 18K there won't be much seal drag,feel for roughness and slop in each bearing. If it were me I'd change them out with new figure about 10 bucks apiece at the local bearing house or a little more at an auto parts store. Some remove/re-install them with a punch and hammer cold. I prefer a little heat and a bearing puller to remove, then heat again and press or use all thread to pull the new in. No need to remove the rotor | ||
| Jramsey |
And I'll add that if they feel good you could use a pick to carefully remove the seals and add grease between every third ball then refit the seal but as mentioned I'd go ahead and replace them. | ||
| Kalali |
James, thanks for the guidance. I am optimistically thinking since the noise is really subtle I might just have some debris launched in the bearing area and may be able to just "blow" out any foreign material using compressed air, especially if I feel no "slop" in the wheel. Otherwise, it looks like I'll need to "hang" the bike from the frame (front of the tank) from the garage rafter in order to remove the wheel and do what James suggested. Is it at all possible for the bearing to eventually freeze and completely lock the front wheel during a ride or it will just strip the housing and ruin the wheel? BTW, does anyone know of a stand where you could lift the front of the bike from the neck area allowing for wheel removal? The pitbull stype stand I have lifts the bike from the axle nuts. (Message edited by kalali on July 28, 2010) | ||
| X1_rider |
I use an engine hoist to lift the bike, some are relatively cheap and work quite well.  | ||
| Fahren |
Kalali, either stripping the bearing area of the wheel or blowing out can happen. Either way, my take on it is that it's not worth the hassle of either, when you have your wheels off every whatever miles for tire changes. So whether you replace every tire change, every other, or just inspect carefully and, if you get your tires put on in a shop where they have a dynamic balancer, then take a listen to the bearings when the wheels are up and spinning - any of the above is better than a wait and see approach. | ||
| Kalali |
Well, gentlemen, it appeared to be a false alarm. I raised the front wheel and turned it and could hear the noise. Figured I make sure it is not from the brake pads so I removed the pads and low and behold noise is gone. Put it all back together and all seems to be well. I did discover another issue which I will post separately because it is totally unrelated. Thanks everyone for the help. | ||
| Buellistic |
As a "SAFETY NOTE" use the TORQUE SPEC's so you do not over torque the axle nuts a crush the bearing spacer which will cause the wheel bearing/bearings to self destruct ... IMHO, even in a new bearing it dose not have enough grease in them, so put more in and re-do every 50K ... | ||
| Kalali |
Thanks. I'll keep that in mind if/when I take the wheel off. |
