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Jdugger
| | Posted on Monday, July 25, 2011 - 12:08 pm: | 
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You can buy better quality bearings. I went with a set of these:
http://www.bocabearings.com/bearing-inventory/Radi al-Bearings/16171/MR6006C2BSTPC35UDLSRL-30x55x13 |
Reepicheep
| | Posted on Monday, July 25, 2011 - 12:19 pm: |
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I just keep a new set of bearings and spacers on the shelf, visually inspect the bearings before each ride, and check them deeper when I change a tire. So far so good... |
Nuts4mc
| | Posted on Monday, July 25, 2011 - 12:25 pm: |
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another thread - KoYo Bearings from Applied - working well for me (replaced frt and rear in January 2011)
http://www.badweatherbikers.com/buell/messages/290 431/395448.html
like Froggy sez - you gotta have a new wheel to make the 3 brg set up work - not enough "meat" in the old wheel design to machine a deeper bore. |
Sprintst
| | Posted on Monday, July 25, 2011 - 12:29 pm: |
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Curious - where is the 3rd bearing located? |
Froggy
| | Posted on Monday, July 25, 2011 - 12:39 pm: |
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The 3rd bearing is inside next to the sprocket side bearing. The new bearings are physically larger and have an extra dust seal on the end, it isn't even close to the old wheel with a extra bearing stuffed in. |
Blake
| | Posted on Monday, July 25, 2011 - 12:45 pm: |
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Right next to the 2nd one. It is just two bearings side by side acting like a single bearing twice as wide and with two rows of rollers. |
Mountainstorm
| | Posted on Monday, July 25, 2011 - 03:04 pm: |
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I rarely disagree with Froggy but I think the new bearings are different and well worth the peace of mind. Both my 2008 OEM bearings (Orange Seal) in the rear failed at about 5000 miles and one of the front failed at 17,000.
Obviously a 2010 rear wheel would be the best upgrade. |
Hughlysses
| | Posted on Monday, July 25, 2011 - 03:17 pm: |
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I rarely disagree with Froggy but I think the new bearings are different and well worth the peace of mind. Both my 2008 OEM bearings (Orange Seal) in the rear failed at about 5000 miles and one of the front failed at 17,000.
The newer OEM bearings are undoubtedly better; they supposedly have better seals and more water-tolerant grease. OTOH we've seen failures of the latest bearings too. We've also seen failures reported with SKF's and I think Koyos.
Among Uly riders, it seems the best results with the pre-2010 bearing arrangement have been achieved by periodically carefully removing the outer bearing seals (using an O-ring pick or similar) and shoving some more grease into them. At least a couple of guys have gotten ~40k+ miles out of their original wheel bearings by doing this. To take it a step farther, at least one Uly rider removed the inner seals from new bearings before installing them and installed a zerk fitting in his wheel hub. He pumped grease into it until it oozed out of the wheel bearing outer seals. IIRC, it took over a full tube of grease to fill the wheel hub, but now he just gives the hub a couple of shots of grease every few thousand miles and so far, this seems to work well.
I went with the 2010 wheel option myself. |
Froggy
| | Posted on Monday, July 25, 2011 - 03:31 pm: |
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My real world testing shows regardless of brand, my bearings last approx 15,000 miles. I've tried the orange bearings, black bearings, and some aftermarket ones like SFK. I haven't tried ceramic bearings, but for what they cost I'll just get the new wheel.
Oh yay, my 1125R is going to hit 15k this weekend  |
Zac4mac
| | Posted on Monday, July 25, 2011 - 03:48 pm: |
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I have yet to replace ANY bearings.
I had 3-4k on Loretta when I got the Amber wheels from Ian.
Seems I remember he said they were off a 2005 or 2007 Lightning.
I put new tires/rotors on and have been riding with the bearings that were in them. 27k miles on the Odo.
Orange seals BTW.
2009 Uly has 23k miles, original bearings. black seals
No special treatment, I even use a power washer but avoid the dash and bearings.
I don't get to ride in the rain much, but I do ride thru the Winter and have seen 17 dF on Loretta's dash.
Zack |
Reepicheep
| | Posted on Monday, July 25, 2011 - 04:26 pm: |
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25k on a 9sx with original bearings, working great when I sold it.
8k miles on my Uly (orange) bearings since I bought it, no problems. No idea if they were replaced when I bought it used (at 10k miles).
I always follow the torqe specs to the letter as per the service manual when my wheel comes off and goes back on. That may be a factor... |
Sprintst
| | Posted on Monday, July 25, 2011 - 04:29 pm: |
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So, careful washing, follow the torque specs and be sure to inspect bearing and spacer when you have the wheel off.
Easy enough
Common to other bikes, or a function of the lightweight design and maybe high torque of our bikes?
(Message edited by sprintst on July 25, 2011) |
Froggy
| | Posted on Monday, July 25, 2011 - 04:40 pm: |
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quote:Easy enough
Yea, and I still have ruined 5 or 6 sets of bearings. |
Court
| | Posted on Monday, July 25, 2011 - 08:36 pm: |
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Sprintst
| | Posted on Monday, July 25, 2011 - 08:41 pm: |
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Great pics, thanks! |
Reepicheep
| | Posted on Monday, July 25, 2011 - 10:19 pm: |
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I think tolerance stack is a factor as well (based in information Al Lighton posted)... so some bikes may eat more bearings than others.
Or froggy has the units set wrong on his digital torque wrench.  |
Froggy
| | Posted on Monday, July 25, 2011 - 10:30 pm: |
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The only thing all my failures have in common is the rider. Multiple XBs, even multiple wheels on the same bike, sometimes wheel installed by me, sometimes by (known to be good) HD tech, sometimes by others. Oh yea, I now have 15149 miles on my R, so I am sure the bearings will explode on me in the middle of nowhere when I do a roadtrip this weekend. |
Jdugger
| | Posted on Monday, July 25, 2011 - 10:51 pm: |
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> I think tolerance stack is a factor as well
If the rear wheels on this bike are anything like the fronts, I'd give you a solid AMEN to that hypothesis, too. |
Blazin_buell
| | Posted on Monday, July 25, 2011 - 11:31 pm: |
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I've got a couple grand on front and rear bearings from "All Balls" ,found the set on theBay for $35 plus shipping. I got 6k on the 1st rear set(orange) and the second (black) at 24k. So far so good with All Balls ,great product for the $$$$. |
Americanmadexb
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 26, 2011 - 03:27 am: |
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Seems I remember he said they were off a 2005 or 2007 Lightning.
06' Ss, but who's counting? 
I believe i had about 2,000 miles on them when i sold them to you, so add that to when you put them on! |
Ohsoslow
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 26, 2011 - 03:39 am: |
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how long have rear wheel bearings been an issue on buells? |
Americanmadexb
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 26, 2011 - 04:01 am: |
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I don't know if the bearings going out has ever been an "issue".
They are bearings. Parts fail. I have seen them go out at 1,000 miles. I have seen them never fail past 30,000 miles. I guess it depends on luck and not screwing up putting the rear wheel back on!!  |
Blake
| | Posted on Thursday, July 28, 2011 - 11:32 am: |
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When did Buell implement the two bearing rear wheel? |
Froggy
| | Posted on Thursday, July 28, 2011 - 12:37 pm: |
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All 2003-09 XB and 1125 models had the 2 bearing wheel. All years Blast too, but that is a different wheel. |
Hughlysses
| | Posted on Thursday, July 28, 2011 - 12:47 pm: |
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I don't know if the bearings going out has ever been an "issue".
I think it's fair to say rear wheel bearings are an issue for 2006-2009 Ulys and somewhat of an issue for 2008-2009 1125's.
This same wheel/bearing setup apparently held up fine on the earlier XB's. It may have been the increased loads of regularly riding 2-up with luggage on Ulys that resulted in more failures. Others speculated it was the longer swingarm resulting in more belt tension (and therefore increased bearing loads) at full swingarm extension. The 1125's would have higher bearing loads than the XB's due to the massive power increase.
At any rate, Buell apparently saw enough problems that they went to the trouble to re-design the rear wheel, and the 2010 setup is massively over-designed such that it buries the problem once and for all. |
Froggy
| | Posted on Thursday, July 28, 2011 - 12:56 pm: |
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Hugh, my theory is that most 1125 and XBs are garage queens, hence they don't get the riding time or conditions to lead to the failure. Look at how many Ulys are over 50k, and look at how many of every other bike. I can name only two 1125s over that, and three non-uly XB. I can read you a mile long list of Ulys though! |
Reepicheep
| | Posted on Thursday, July 28, 2011 - 02:32 pm: |
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I had close to 30k on my 05 XB9SX, riding in all kinds of weather. So it was no garage queen.
I gave my maintenance records away with the bike, and I don't specifically remember changing them, but I saw some orange bearings in my great big box of old Buell parts. So I might actually have swapped them when the first fuss started. That would have been early on, so there would have been at least 20k on the new bearings. And the original bearings didn't fail, they were just swapped as a precaution. |
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