Front Wheel Bearings

[David53]

Need some suggestions for front wheel bearings that will last more than a few thousand miles.

I have MM style combined front hub/brake drums. After going through several sets of bearings from ESM Spares I tried some high quality KSM sealed bearings (both inner and outer). Now these are starting to get noisy after only a few thousand miles.

Any suggestions? Getting sick of changing them.

[mike.perry]

Are you still using Series MM/II swivel pins or have you converted your drums to fit M1000 swivel pins? I am experimenting with pre packed sealed bearings, less messy when working on the brakes

[alanworland]

Years ago I had a lot of trouble with bearings moving in the hub. That bad it felt like the bearings had had it.
Turns out after a proper investigation that the spacer was longer than the distance between the bearing shoulders in the hub! Can't remember properly but it was something like .006/.008 thou.
Removed the extra off the spacer and 'loctited' the bearings in have had no problems since.

Alan

[David53]

Yes, wondering if the bearings are shifting in the hub. But they are in pretty tight and were fine for the first few thousand miles. If they were going to move in the hub I'd assume they'd start doing it pretty much straight away?

The last set were high quality sealed units supposedly guaranteed for 100,000 kms. I'm wondering if maybe you're right about the spacer, modern bearings a little thicker than original ones? Maybe this results in uneven wear?

[alanworland]

I think even if the bearings are thicker (doubtful) the inner and outer track will be the same dimension, which is the important bit.
Might be worth measuring the spacer next time it's out and comparing the dimension with the between faces dimension in the hub.

Alan

[philthehill]

I would suggest that the original bearings are measured for thickness/depth and compared with the new sealed bearings.
If the new sealed bearings are thicker/wider (especially the centre race) the bearing spacer will not allow the bearing outer race to sit right down and seat into the hub and there could be some lateral movement/float inside the hub which could lead to wear of the hub.