| Author | Message | ||
     Jphish |
At each tire change (now on my 3rd) I have used the 'standard' repack & anti-seize process on the rear bearings to prevent failure. I have the old model 'red seal' version. Eventually the seal will get damaged from my hamfisted attempts to 'oh so carefully' pick out the old seal, thus leaving the bearing vulnerable. SO...Has anyone been able to ascertain absolutely if the new 'BLACK seal' bearing is infact a REAL improvement, and no longer requires extreme vigilance ?? OR...is it just the same old bearing of a different color ? Has the 'Mother ship' verified this is an actual upgrade - or just changed the seal color to confuse us ? inquiring minds... | ||
| Xbimmer |
I have four of the new ones in my garage and I've been sooooo tempted to open them up to check that myself. They're inexpensive enough that I would sacrifice one but money's tight enough right now I'll just trust that Buell has improved the bearings with actually improved parts. I've never been fully convinced anyway that it was solely the bearings at fault with the failures. | ||
| Hughlysses |
People reported here that at Buell homecoming 2008, Abe Askenazi (Buell's Director of Analysis, Test and Engineering Process) specifically stated that the factory had analyzed the problems, determined that contamination getting past the seals was the problem, and that they would release updated bearings as a result. New bearings were in fact released and they're made by a different manufacturer. The originals were made by NTN; new ones are made by KBC. That's as far as the official word on the problem goes. I've seen a lot of discussion here and at advrider on the issue. I know some folks are still doing some behind-the-scenes investigation of the problem (talking to bearing manufacturers and application engineers) as they aren't convinced of the validity of Abe's explanation above. I haven't seen any reports of failures with the new bearings; maybe they have fixed the problem. | ||
| Froggy |
Its too soon to know if the new bearings are good or not. They started appearing on august built 09 models. | ||
| Jphish |
Yeah - I suppose it is too early for 'beta' testing to reveal if they really solved it or not. By end of this summer the 'post August' group should know for sure. I imagine we'd be hard pressed to get Buell to "out" themselves on this matter due to liability concerns. I'm not lookin to point blame or flame Buell on this. Perhaps an official communique from East Troy that goes something like this: "While there is nothing inherently defective on the previous XB model rear bearings, for those of you that may have concerns, please feel free to replace them with the following part # for peace of mind. Reduction of your stress and anxiety about premature failure and a ruined trip is of paramount concern to us...thus you may find these bearings will alleviate the aforementioned condition". Hmmm - whataya think the chances are folks ?? Anyway...considering just replacing with the KBC's and 'testing' them myself. Even though I've been vigilant (anal?) about servicing them, at every little click, squeal or rattle I want to do a stoppie and finger check 'em for excessive heat or oozzing lube. I think my anxiety stems from the BMW/GS guys I ride with - always looking at me with suspicion, like I'm going to screw up another trip. (happened twice already, broken shock and pawl spring) I sabotaged their rear drives & canbusses...but nothings happened yet. Damn! j | ||
| Hughlysses |
John- How many miles have you got on your original bearings now? My gut feel is if they're going to catastrophically fail, it'll happen in the first few thousand miles (<10k). If the root cause of the problem is something like incorrect installation, over or under length spacer, etc., that should make the bearings fail relatively quickly. OTOH- if you've got 30k or 50k miles on them, I think I'd go ahead and change them at the next tire change as they are going to eventually wear out. BTW- I think I came up with a good "on the bike" check for the bearings: the last time I got ready to leave on a long ride, I jacked the bike up and spun the rear wheel with my finger inside the hollow rear axle. I couldn't feel any hint of roughness or vibration. Using a mechanic's stethoscope in the axle to listen would be an even better way to do it. I'm hoping a bearing problem would reveal itself this way before there's any visual indication like filings coming out of the seals. | ||
| Jphish |
Hugh - got about 15K. Always wear my free (after buying a $12,000 bike) Buell baseball hat for good luck while on trips now. I think the pretrip test is a great idea and should be standard practice prior to any out of town venture. My Grandaughter has a stethoscope in her mattel 'Dr kit' - wonder if she'll let Granpa borrow it if I let her spin the wheel? Thanks Hugh - your check proceedure is a good one - takes 5 mins. j | ||
| Etennuly |
My bearings made it to 33,000 miles before I killed one of them. When I removed my wheel bearings and spacer to change out the noisy bearing, the hub was sloshing with about three ounces of water. I have greased the bearings at every tire change and coated the seal with anti-sieze. I did one day with three water crossings,and a thousand miles later a squalling bearing resulted. Using a heat gun to warm the hub made changing them so easy I don't think I will even complain about them anymore. It can be done in ten extra minutes while doing the rear tire. | ||
| Florida_lime |
My '07 bearings crapped out on a trip at 12,000 miles. The old style (red seal) replacements have over 15,000 miles on them now. They will be getting a close examination when I change the rear tire in a week or so. They went while traveling through Atlanta on Good Friday last year, and I will be making the same trip again this year, and really don't want that kind of "adventure" again ! | ||
| Ulyscol |
My Uly has 10k on my original bearings and I just decided to pop em' open for a peak. The one side had plenty of grease while the other was bone dry. See "bearing grease" post. As far as I can tell both the NTN and KBC are single row deep groove ball bearings with double lip contact seals. I cannot find much more information on the KBC bearings. Seems like they were bought out by FAG. I am not sure what would be so different about the KBC bearings??? Just found out you can get the front KBC from MSC for $11 each. http://www1.mscdirect.com/CGI/NNSRIT?PMPXNO=1873006&PMT4NO=59909980 Anyone know the bearing number for the rear? (Message edited by ulyscol on March 10, 2009) | ||
| Mnrider |
Ulyscol just pointed out that one of his bearings was bone dry,I'll bet some of the bearings were coming with very little grease. Then like Etennuly says water entry on some bearings could be causing some failures. I'll be removing my seals and greasing the bearings. | ||
| Arcticktm |
Opinion and opinion only: My rear bearings showed clear signs of water entry (rust) when I replaced them under 9K miles. I do not believe this some inherent design calculation error or quality problem (spacer length, machining of wheel bore, etc), because these are very established bearing industry standards, and not all all difficult tolerances to hold in any modern operation. Checking the load capability and speed limits of this class of bearing also shows that it is very unlikely that any of us could be exceeding either limit in any condition the bike would normally encounter. The flaw is in putting the bearings on the very outside, where they are subject to direct contamination. Very few other bikes have these, outside of Buell, in my informal polling. Even my 2000 BMW cruiser has secondary rubber shields/seals outboard of the wheel bearings, that keep most contaminants out. Most other wheel designs also do not so easily allow water and dirt to get to the inside face of the bearings, where they meet the spacer. Many of us have seen a lot of water in there when removing a wheel, even though we are religious about no power washing, do not spray any water near axles, no water crossings, etc. As for why the Uly seems much more impacted by this design, I can only speculate. Seems per this board that Uly's are on average ridden more miles and in more varied conditions than other Buell models. I will be happy to be wrong, but I would not put my money down that the "new" black seal color bearings will turn off the problem like a switch. I suppose if the seals are a major improvement over current, then it could help for those that are careful about what gets near the axles. I did as much research as I could on the web to try and find what I thought might be a better seal for my rears. I went with an SKF design, but cannot say if they are really any better seal or not. I am now watching them very carefully, and I did re-grease the fronts (still stock), and use anti-seize on the outside of the seals. | ||
| Johnboy777 |
""As for why the Uly seems much more impacted by this design, I can only speculate. Seems per this board that Uly's are on average ridden more miles and in more varied conditions than other Buell models"" Due to its added height, the Uly puts more stress/tension on the rear axle and belt than other XB12 models ... to the tune of 25%, as I recall. This is from an old article in Fuell mag., which quoted an eng., so Buell is aware of all of this. . | ||
| Treadmarks |
I had rear wheel bearing failure on my 06 at 18.5k and an 08 rental in Alaska at 5k. Every time I removed the wheel there was water trapped inside the wheel hub. I drilled a set of offset weep holes in the rear wheel hub when I replaced my stock failed units with FAGs last year. Twice since I have removed the rear wheel and no more water was inside. Yes, a letter from the mothership would be the right thing to do. | ||
| Thunderbox |
I am at the 24000 km point and about 15000 kms of that was 2 up and I still have the originals and so far so good. I will admit that I am getting a bit paranoid about them because of the problems people have had. I am taking the beast apart before I start using it and will change the bearings to the updated ones. | ||
| Etennuly |
I have set up two distinctly different ways to rid the water problem. One of them was to do as Treadmarks did and drilled three 1/8" breather holes. We did that on a friends bike. On my bike, I decided to do what had worked for my three wheelers. I drilled and tapped a hole in the hub, installed a grease fitting, and pumped it full of marine grease. Back "in my day" of racing three wheelers, they were notorious for eating wheel bearings as a matter of a live axle, extreme traction, and lots of twisting torque. Bearing failures became a thing of the past on those bikes, pump a couple of shots in it before riding and water never got in no matter how far the water was over the seat. On the Uly I am not expecting to have to pump any more grease in there until tire changing time. I rode it to Daytona and back last week, 1287 miles, and no grease escaped to muck things up. That was my only concern, I don't want goo all over the back of the bike. Time will tell how these ideas work. The only draw back to the open hole method that I see, if you do a water crossing it will flow in and back out. What if it is muddy water and plugs it up? | ||
| Froggy |
I guess the horses counts as a wheel?  | ||
| Ulyscol |
Arcticktm, From your research did you find any different seals? From what I can tell every bearing manufacturer offers the same seal types, either contact or non-contact, in three material options virgin rubber, nitrile, or teflon. I agree with your secondary seal point you made. Another interesting point is the grease that comes in the original NTN bearings. See my bearing grease post. I am slowly finding out the Polyrex EM grease may not be the best option for a bearing subjected to water. | ||
| Marinus |
My 2008 with 2500 miles turned up crunchy rear wheel bearings last week. They were warranted without a fuss, but the service writer gave me a mini-lecture about pressure washing the bike. Seems the hub had "lots" of water in it. Hah! Like I wash it. That can't have been the water entry mechanism... but the service writer (probably the whole service dept.) seem to have decided that's the cause. Here's an odd thing: when the wheel was off, before the bearings were replaced, I was toying with prying off the bearing seals to take a look at the bearings (since they felt crunchy). When I inserted a tiny screwdriver at the edge of the bearing seal and began to lift that edge, there was a pronounced hissing noise, like air escaping from a tire valve. I lowered the seal, and then repeated the action. "HiSSSSSSSSS", again. Now the wheel'd been sitting off the bike for at least 12 hours. The hub was definitely at ambient temperature. Yet a pressure difference existed between the interior of the hub and the world (not sure whether the air was entering or exiting the hub). With that observation, another mechanism comes to mind. A. Hub heats, internal pressure rises, air and water vapor are expelled. B. Hub cools, internal pressure drops, outside air pushes in bringing fresh moisture. C. Moisture condenses. D. When next the hub is heated, it should/could vaporize the water and expel it with the air, keeping the mechanism trapped in the A-D loop. But if there's some residual condensation... [that is, if not all the water vapor introduced at (B.) is expelled at (D.) ], then E. Condensation accumulates in the hub. Once that starts, it will accelerate, since the water inside must be heated before it will go to vapor -- but the air pump action will still be working. I think I'm gonna drill a vent hole in the hub. Does someone who's done so have a picture? What location, exactly, did you choose? | ||
| 1313 |
I found out some disturbing info while installing a new rear tire Friday night. The black seal wheel bearings installed by the dealer I bought my '08 XB12XT from were shot after only 4,100 miles. One of the previous bearings (original red seal ones) were shot at just over 11,000 miles. While this data says that the black seal wheel bearings aren't better, I believe there was something done incorrectly with the installation of the black seal bearings or even tightening of the rear axle by the dealership. However, this experience (2nd trip missed due to bad rear wheel bearings) has me seriously considering the Free Spirits tensioner. Anybody have experience with this part on a Uly or XT? One data point (that I believe is flawed), 1313  | ||
| Jlnance |
1313 - Yours may be the first bearing failure reported on an XT. |
