Gerald,
IF the brakes never got TOO hot, that regular grease might have been
OK. In normal driving, I've found my wheel hubs stay right at 'ambient',
as measured with one of those temperature guns. (or my hand; I have no
hubcaps on my trailer for that very reason)
I can nearly always find a suitable socket for pressing in a new race,
or I'll turn something on the lathe in short order.
Although you're probably right about always replacing the outer race if
the rollers are damaged in any way, I've found that it's often OK and
I'll sometimes reuse it. Probably not the best idea, but I've never had
a failure due to doing things that way. This most recent replacement was
that way, the outer race looked fine to me and probably would have been
OK to reuse with the new cone.
I didn't spin the wheel to see if there was a rumble before tearing it
apart, so can't say if it would have been noisy. It probably would have,
at least a little bit. I saved the old bearing and will try to get a
picture of it one of these days and put it on the Web Site.
<<Jim>>
"Dr. Gerald N. Johnson, electrical engineer" wrote:
>
> I know a former filling station operator (sells water softeners now) who
> says he never used anything but chassis grease when packing wheel
> bearings for customers. Never had any complaints. Of course when the
> wheel bearings locked up and wrecked the cars the accident investigation
> didn't detect the wheel bearing failures after they hit a bridge
> abutment head on...
>
> Wheel bearing grease for disk brakes is rated for higher temperature
> operation than the old stringy wheel bearing grease that was standard 30
> years ago.
>
> I find that using a bar of aluminum (about 1/2 x 3/4") trimmed to the
> diameter of the outer race makes removing and replacing bearings a
> breeze with the hydraulic press compared to the hammer and punch
> technique. If I was truly serious, I'd buy a special tool that has
> adjustable width legs to fit every bearing. I also sometime use a socket
> from my collection as the driver for pushing outer races into the hub.
> With that adjustable bifurcated pushing tool, out races are a trivial
> task, and any good machine shop attached to an auto parts store should
> have it and should be able to replace bearing races for a couple bucks
> each.
>
> I'm working with wheel bearings on hay racks and other farm machinery
> that may be 30 to 50 years old and never been inside a building since it
> was built. There I have some rust problems on top of tight fits, and the
> hydraulic press is necessary.
>
> One can do a rudimentary check for wheel bearing condition by raising
> the axle and spinning the wheel. If you do that while doing a brake
> adjustment (probably should be done at least annually anyway), back off
> the brake adjustment so there's no drag. If there is any sound, like a
> speed dependent rumble, go buy bearings before you bother to complete
> the brake adjustment. The bearings are going bad and need to be replace.
>
> Never replace cone alone, because the outer race has been damaged by or
> is the cause of the damage to the rollers and the new cone and rollers
> will be destroyed rapidly by the old damaged outer race.
>
> Gerald J.
>
>
--
<<http://www.oldengine.org/members/jdunmyer>>
<<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>>
<<lower SE Michigan, USA>>
<<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>>
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