{"id":17013,"date":"2012-12-29T22:01:59","date_gmt":"2012-12-30T03:01:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/?p=17013"},"modified":"2012-12-29T22:01:59","modified_gmt":"2012-12-30T03:01:59","slug":"repacking-cartridge-bearings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/2012\/12\/29\/repacking-cartridge-bearings\/","title":{"rendered":"Repacking Cartridge Bearings"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Not long after a recent bike wash I noticed a pedaling-related squeak when riding my Mukluk. I figured it to just be some seal noise, so after today’s wash I removed the cranks and set about investigating the snap-on seals that came with the crankset, figuring it to be one of those. Instead it turns out that the noise was coming from the non-drive side cartridge bearing, which was also feeling a bit rough.<\/p>\n

I had two spare bearings from the last time I needed to do bearing work<\/a>, so I figured I’d try and salvage these. Pulling the seals off I found that they had a bit of creamy (likely water-spoiled) grease inside, but seemed to be in otherwise good shape. I removed the grease and found them to be spinning very smoothly when clean, so I lubed them up with some ProGold EPX Cycling Grease<\/a>. This is a nice, sticky grease that seems like it’d be good for bearings in harsher environments. (Disclaimer: I received a free tube of this as part of the large set of stuff donated to MMBA Metro North \/ CRAMBA in 2011<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Everything went back together nicely, and now the cranks spin smoothly without any irritating squeak. I hope that this new grease will be a bit more weather resistant than whatever came in the eBay special bearings I’d purchased and these bearings will last for a while. They were nice and clean and spinning smooth once cleaned out, so I’m hoping I caught them before any damage was done.<\/p>\n

Here is the general process I used for cleaning the bearings:<\/p>\n

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  1. Use a sharp T pin to carefully remove the seals from the bearings.<\/li>\n
  2. Wipe out as much grease as possible with a paper towel.<\/li>\n
  3. Soak the bearings in citrus-based degreaser. (I use ZEP, it works just as well as the bike specific stuff.)<\/li>\n
  4. Alternate between rinsing the bearings in hot water, brushing them with a degreaser-soaked toothbrush, and swirling them around in the degreaser bath until they are clean.<\/li>\n
  5. Once the bearings are very clean, rinse in as hot of water as possible, then shake dry.<\/li>\n
  6. Blow dry with a blower or air compressor, if available.<\/li>\n
  7. Submerge the bearings in 99% isopropyl alcohol and agitate to get any residual water off of the bearings and dissolved in the alcohol.<\/li>\n
  8. Remove the bearings from the alcohol, shake them out, and set them upright to dry. Occasionally spin the bearings to help the process along. (This will only take a few minutes.)<\/li>\n
  9. Liberally apply grease into the ball bearings and cage, then spin the bearing a few times to ensure it’s moving freely and grease is evenly distributed.<\/li>\n
  10. Lightly grease the seals then snap them back in place with finger pressure. Spin the bearings a few more times to ensure the seals are properly seated.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Not long after a recent bike wash I noticed a pedaling-related squeak when riding my Mukluk. I figured it to just be some seal noise,…<\/p>\n

    Continue readingRepacking Cartridge Bearings<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cycling","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17013"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17013\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17016,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17013\/revisions\/17016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}