Wheel bearing maintenance and replacement

[Frank C]

Nice enough weather today to start the Ollie maintenance with greasing the zerk fittings and repacking the wheel bearings.  No issues get the wheels & drums off or greasing the zerk fittings.  After pulling the drums off, good to see plenty of grease still in the bearings (Oliver did the previous bearing repack service), grease looked nice and clean still (first photo) but the two of the bearings show discoloration on the inner race surface where it contacts the axle spindle (second photo).  The axle spindles look really good and the tapered rollers themselves in the bearings all look good with no discoloration, but with that discoloration of the race I’m still thinking it’s time to replace the Chinese bearings with the genuine Timkens that I purchased from the western PA Timken distributor.  Discoloration like that is usually a sign of the bearing overheating at some point.  Thoughts?

 

 

[dewdev]

As far as bearing, nothing better than American made

[topgun2]

When considering the price of the bearings versus the hassle, time, safety, energy, pain in the ....., etc of breaking down on the road, I would just go ahead and change those right now.

Bill