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MNSparky

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Discussion starter · #1 ·
Looking to replace all the bearings (frame, wheel hub, freehub and BB) on my 2021 Trek Fuel EX 8 this winter during the off season. Several of them are creaking and there is a squeak coming from the rear hub. Looking for suggestions on tools and bearings.... I'd rather not spend the Park Tool prices as this tool would see use maybe every couple years but I also want something that will work well without damaging the bike. I've never done this so I'm also struggling to know exactly what I'll need. Here's the potential kits I've found so far, any opinions on them?

www.altalt.ca

Basic Bearing Press Kit - Acetal — Alt Alt Bike Products

Before you order, check “Inventory Update” on HOMEPAGE. Available for shipping to Canada & USA only. Formerly called Suspension Bearing Press. See product page for details
www.altalt.ca www.altalt.ca

www.ebay.com

Bicycle Bearing Press Set, Drift Bike Tool Kit Set, Turning Point for Wheels Hub 696600379921 | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Bicycle Bearing Press Set, Drift Bike Tool Kit Set, Turning Point for Wheels Hub at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!
www.ebay.com

www.ebay.com

Mountain Bike Cycle Bearing Press Tool Kit for Wheels/Hub Bearing Installation | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Mountain Bike Cycle Bearing Press Tool Kit for Wheels/Hub Bearing Installation at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!
www.ebay.com

wheelsmfg.com

Bearing Press Pro Kit

Gone are the days when shop mechanics grabbed whatever socket was close enough to the sealed bearing size and just tapped it in. The Bearing Press Pro Kit replaces that archaic installation system, providing the right tool for the job. The Bearing Press Pro Kit installs 14 bearing sizes...
wheelsmfg.com wheelsmfg.com

Will I need a bearing extractor? Seems a lot of videos just tap them out with screwdriver or something... Seems like a good way to gouge the internals.

Are there significant differences in bearings? I see that they are offered by many different sources at a wide range of prices.

Is there a good place to find a bearing list for my specific bike? I haven't been able to find one. I'd like to order all the bearings before I actually take it apart.

Thanks!
 
#3 ·
I would service the bearings, not replace them. When it comes to press fit bearings, the fewer times you mess with them the better. I've gone many years on pivot bearings by removing the outer seal and packing with fresh grease. There's no reason to replace unless they are shot. Even if they are gritty a cleaning and fresh grease can make them feel new again. It's a pretty easy job that can ultimately be as good or better than brand new bearings. I say better because you could end up installing bearings with worse tolerances. Or bearings that weren't packed with grease well enough from the factory. At least when you pop the seals and pack them yourself you know how much and what quality grease you have.

Creaks aren't likely to go away just by replacing pivot bearings. Noise can come from many places so it's hard to say. Hub bearings tend to last a long time too. I would service the free hub, all pivot bearings and BB too, then try to figure out where the creaks are coming from. Often it's from poor tolerances.
 
#4 ·
This company is UK based but it might still be cheaper getting it shipped over. Surely there's something like this stateside?

www.bearingprotools.com

Bearing Pullers and Presses for Bicycles - BearingProTools.com

BearingProTools manufacture specialist bike tools for the professional and home mechanic. We have a wide range of blind bearing pullers, presses and other tools for mountain bike and road bike hubs, wheels, bottom bracket and frame pivots. We offer fast and free shipping in the UK and express...
www.bearingprotools.com

You can build a press tool with a piece of threaded bar, a couple of nuts, a selection of washers (the same size as your bearing ODs), and use the old bearings as drifts.

Sometimes you can use sockets to press out bearings but it depends on what kind of access you have.
 
Discussion starter · #5 ·
slimat99 said:
I would service the bearings, not replace them. When it comes to press fit bearings, the fewer times you mess with them the better. I've gone many years on pivot bearings by removing the outer seal and packing with fresh grease. There's no reason to replace unless they are shot. Even if they are gritty a cleaning and fresh grease can make them feel new again. It's a pretty easy job that can ultimately be as good or better than brand new bearings. I say better because you could end up installing bearings with worse tolerances. Or bearings that weren't packed with grease well enough from the factory. At least when you pop the seals and pack them yourself you know how much and what quality grease you have.

Creaks aren't likely to go away just by replacing pivot bearings. Noise can come from many places so it's hard to say. Hub bearings tend to last a long time too. I would service the free hub, all pivot bearings and BB too, then try to figure out where the creaks are coming from. Often it's from poor tolerances.
Click to expand...
I'll have to give this a shot, from what I read the seals can be difficult to get off without damage. I've also never serviced a bearing like this so this is all new to me. I'm used to loose ball bearings in chases on older bikes. This is the first bike I've owned that was made after 1998. Thanks for the tip.
 
#6 ·
Cartridge bearing seals are easy to remove without damaging. Bearings are captured so you don't have to worry about anything. Just use a dental pic, or razor blade to remove the outer seal. Pry from the top at a few places working your way around with even prying until they come out. They press back in with hand pressure easily. You can clean the bearings with IPA, brake parts cleaner, or WD40, just make sure they are dry before you pack with grease. Compressed air is great to flush out cleaner and gunk after you wipe out as much as you can with a rag. Sometimes I skip the cleaners and just use a rag to whip out as much old grease then repack because it's tough to get the bearings totally clean when you only remove one seal. Depends on how dirty, or how long since the last repack. It's pretty amazing what just new grease will do with no cleaning. I like heavy marine grease from auto parts store for pivot bearings. Don't go overboard with repacking or it will just spill out past the seals and attract dirt. 3/4 pack then spin the bearings a few times should be spot on.
 
#8 ·
MNSparky said:
I'll have to give this a shot, from what I read the seals can be difficult to get off without damage. I've also never serviced a bearing like this so this is all new to me. I'm used to loose ball bearings in chases on older bikes. This is the first bike I've owned that was made after 1998. Thanks for the tip.
Click to expand...
The problem is when bearings wear, it's due to the races and ball bearings wearing down, this is due to oxidization and the bearings/races rolling against each other. In a perfect world, the bearing is not under the same kind of load as mountain bike suspension and gets 360 degrees of rotation. This isn't a perfect world though, mtb companies use bearings because they are a lot cheaper than the tolerances for quality bushings and these things wear, which creates small metallic particles within the grease/paste and the surfaces wear down. That in turn accelerates wear. Packing it full of grease again "seems" ok, but they will develop slop and get worse again quickly. If you could service the bearings often enough, you would remove them, clean them out completely with degreaser and pack in new grease. Removing and inserting mtb bearings damages them, it's ok to punch out old bearings, but even bearing pullers are causing shock loads to the parts of the bearing that shouldn't be shock-loaded. You should set a bearing by using a press that seats on both the inner and outer lip/race of the bearing. Just hitting one side is bad (like a bearing puller or punching out bearings does). So then there's trying to do it "in place", to do this, you need to remove both side dust seals to properly "pack" grease into a bearing, purging the old grease on the opposite side. This is not as good as above, but can help somewhat. Taking the dust seals on and off also damages them and sometimes they do not go back like they came out. The point is that these types of bearings are generally not removeable for service. You can do it, but it's not the intent of these types of bearing systems. I've worked on bearing systems on industrial and military equipment where this was obviously the intent...much different configuration and setup. For mtb stuff, you often have to be taking apart linkages and other frame parts just to get at these, which introduces wear to parts and bolts that again, were not intended to be taken apart and re-installed constantly.

One of the better ways to do this IME is get some better quality bearings, from an actual bearing supplier, like NSK, SKF, etc. These are much better quality than stuff like Enduro. Unfortunately, some frame and other part manufacturers insist on using "special" sizes in mtb that aren't easily available...but the opposite is also true, a lot do as well. These tend to last longer, but they don't make up for poor tolerances or poor design, which many mtb frames still suffer from. You may be able to get a few more rides out of your bearings by doing one of the above methods when you notice some issues and are waiting for new bearings to show up, but you do not want to ride with rough/loose bearings/pivots. This starts ovalizing the holes due to the constant slamming of that little bit of play, that's a good way to wreck the interface, which is a lot more expensive than a bearing.

It's not that you can't "service" bearings IME, but these are generally non-serviceable bearings in design and intent and IME there are significant limitations when trying to do that.
 
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#9 ·
There's also a cheap blind bearing puller somewhere floating around amazon/ebay that works pretty well. It doesn't cover every size perfectly, takes a little monkey work to make it work sometimes for certain sizes, but it's worked well enough. I have wheels mfg and that blue bearing press kit and they are both extremely high quality. That blue one is obviously like 1/4th the cost, so it's a pretty good deal.
 
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#11 ·
I just removed the outer seals on a couple of bearings and have this to say. I began working with a larger diameter and dull pick, and I did some damage to the seal. I had the best luck when I switched to a fine diameter dental-style pick and then tried to get the pick way behind the seal and in among the bearings. That way you are "hooking" more of the seal and it is less likely to tear. Once you are in there good, the seal just pops off.

I definitely think that there are circumstances where bearings can reasonably be rehabilitated and those where replacement is the only option, and there are benefits and drawbacks to each approach. I would always rehabilitate in place until doing so doesn't give satisfactory results and then replace.

BTW in another thread somebody mentioned that SKF makes a new "solid oil" bearing aimed specifically at mtb applications. I looked into it and it seems like a winner.
 
#12 ·
I've bee
cvbrewer said:
I just removed the outer seals on a couple of bearings and have this to say. I began working with a larger diameter and dull pick, and I did some damage to the seal. I had the best luck when I switched to a fine diameter dental-style pick and then tried to get the pick way behind the seal and in among the bearings. That way you are "hooking" more of the seal and it is less likely to tear. Once you are in there good, the seal just pops off.

I definitely think that there are circumstances where bearings can reasonably be rehabilitated and those where replacement is the only option, and there are benefits and drawbacks to each approach. I would always rehabilitate in place until doing so doesn't give satisfactory results and then replace.

BTW in another thread somebody mentioned that SKF makes a new "solid oil" bearing aimed specifically at mtb applications. I looked into it and it seems like a winner.
Click to expand...
interesting

SKF

www.skf.com www.skf.com
 
#13 ·
Pro tip: If you are just repacking suspension cartridge bearings, make sure you spin them 1/4-halfway around from where they were. They dont rotate much during use-and go back to teh same position; that will put a possibly less-worn section of the balls in the high-load spot.
 
#14 ·
Jayem said:
One of the better ways to do this IME is get some better quality bearings, from an actual bearing supplier, like NSK, SKF, etc.
Click to expand...
I just pulled the bearings on a Giant Trance, it uses 12 in total on the rear suspension, 4 different sizes the only one the SKF seems to offer is the 63800 and they're $30 each. Does that sound about right for SFK/NSK bearings? Assuming all the sizes were available $360+ to replace the suspension bearings feels pretty pricey considering they don't actually rotate through more than about 90 degrees!

Out of interest does anyone offer aftermarket bushing kits for suspension that would press into the bearing 'holes'?
 
#15 ·
chiefsilverback said:
I just pulled the bearings on a Giant Trance, it uses 12 in total on the rear suspension, 4 different sizes the only one the SKF seems to offer is the 63800 and they're $30 each. Does that sound about right for SFK/NSK bearings? Assuming all the sizes were available $360+ to replace the suspension bearings feels pretty pricey considering they don't actually rotate through more than about 90 degrees!

Out of interest does anyone offer aftermarket bushing kits for suspension that would press into the bearing 'holes'?
Click to expand...
Tolerances have to be a lot better to sub in bushings, so that would not be a good idea. It's highly unlikely it will have the tolerances and alignment for that much more precision solution. That sounds about right for bearing cost, although sometimes the smaller ones are a bit cheaper and you don't necessarily need the same grade for each pivot...90 degrees is pretty good, most suspension bearings only rotate like 5-15. It's likely the higher end bearings will last longer...but that is also dependent on frame alignment and tolerances, also design.
 
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#16 ·
That sounds awful expensive to me. To add context, the Enduro kit is around $100. I sourced them separately for around half that but haven't installed any yet. I'd wonder how the increased price would translate into longevity and or performance. It might be worth paying that for the solid oil bearings if they would last much longer/indefinitely.
 
#17 ·
cvbrewer said:
That sounds awful expensive to me. To add context, the Enduro kit is around $100. I sourced them separately for around half that but haven't installed any yet. I'd wonder how the increased price would translate into longevity and or performance. It might be worth paying that for the solid oil bearings if they would last much longer/indefinitely.
Click to expand...
That's my thinking. Bottom bracket or hub bearings I could see going with a more expensive option as those things spin a lot, but spending over $300 to put high end bearings on pivots that barely move seems like a poor RoI, but I guess if they are 'one and done' and you never have to think about servicing them again for the life of the bike then that could be worth the expense? Ironically the more bearings you have the more time consuming it is to service/replace them so the more enticing 'one and done' would be, but there are more bearings so the cost goes up much higher...
 
#18 ·
The solid oil bearings have largely been abandoned in the bicycle world, because they require heat to wet out the lubricant. Without replenishment, the balls rust just as fast [faster?] than normal bearings. In machinery, that heat is provided by constant motion at power...which bicycles don't experience through their bearings.

It's a good example of something that sounds good, but doesn't work well in practice (here, not in general).
 
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