Singlespeed & Fixed Gear - Hubs- Sealed vs. not

Wondering what the deal is with sealed hubs vs. non-sealed? Can you still open up and grease the bearings with sealed hubs? Do you have to?

With sealed, no, you really can't unless you use a liquid oil for your grease since they are cartridge bearings. You don't need to, is the point. The design keeps them relatively free of dirt and grime unlike looseball.

Also, sealed hubs/cartridge hubs don't use cones and cups, so your hub doesn't wear out when your bearings do, and you don't have to make the same type of adjustment as with looseball.

And if the bearings do die, you can just spend $5 for new bearings. Instead of having to pay for new hubs.

really? then how much does it cost to replace sealed cartridge bearings?

if the bearing race in a loose ball bearing hub gets pitted, then you have to replace the hub don't you?

pretty much yeah... that can take awhile, but yeah.

nobody here has ever ridden a skateboard or longboard.

You can easily open up and clean out a sealed cartridge bearings. I would recommend it once or twice per year. The seal isn't perfect and stuff can still get in there, and the grease just gets old after a while.

And $5 bearing are *****, get some nice $25 ones and there is a really noticeable difference. Maybe you won't notice it on a bike cause there are so many vibrations and other things that come into play, but it is there.

Phil Wood bearings go for about 7 bucks each. I always read about ceramic bearings saving only a few watts, so really for the vast majority of us there isn't much of a point, unless you're cruising around in a skinsuit and aero helmet. I say if you're paying 25 bucks for cartridge bearings something is wrong.

I recently greased my old rusty skateboard bearings with park tool grease.

They roll super smooth, and decently efficent. Im not sure if they are fast or slow compared to other peoples set ups, but I do know Ive got the quietest with least vibration.

Ive used chain lube on them before to, you got to remember these arn't bones swiss, they are no-name junk.

I think ive heard of people using gas and motoroil. Ive never googled how to clean them though

Yeah, I have seen ceramic bearing sets! going for $50 on ebay.

They aren't alot. Unless you thought I meant $5 to replace all the bearings in both hubs. 4 bearings.

It's cheap and easy is the take home message.

Loose ball are nice cause it's just one more thing you can fine tune, have control of, clean, whatever, on your bike, which is cool. But I know my front dura-ace hub has already started to form a small wear groove after I neglected cleaning them for a little too long. And it's only 8 months old, and not the kind of thing I can afford to replace anymore.

Sealed cartridge is just easier in every way, and cheaper.

It depends. For use on the track, which is always clean and dry, I prefer the adjustability of open cup and cone style ball bearings for both the wheel hubs and bottom bracket. On the road, however, It's sealed all the way. Properly maintained, open bearings can last almost indefinitely; I have several vintage Campy and other road wheels that are over 30 years old and the bearing races are in perfect condition.

oh man... flashbacks to the old skateboarding days. sigh.

u could always keep it alive

I have three fixed gear bikes with sealed bearing hubs: Surly, Cane Creek, and Phil.

The Cane Creeks feel the smoothest by far, and on a work stand they keep spinning and spinning and spinning.

I've ridden the Cane Creeks for three years through horrible winters.

Riders at my lbs tell me nothing matches Dura Ace loose ball hubs for smoothness and low rolling resistance.

Even in our dirty volcanic cinder environment, the loose ball riders tell me they service their hubs only twice a year and they go forever.

And then I read stryper's comment about his groove, and I wonder.

I wouldn't worry too much about your hubs wearing out in a loose ball hub. I just relaced a Sun Shine am-pro hub, I think it's from the 70's, and the hub is perfect but the cones were worn out. I had even ridden on it for a while with old dry grease, like an idiot. Now I'm still fairly inexperienced, but my guess is the hub will last a long time while the bearings and cones will need replacing every so often, but those aren't expensive at all.

when my bike got stolen for 6 weeks the cones got super loose and a ridiculous amount of dirt got in them. I rode on that for 3 months before finally cleaning them out and the grease was almost black with some good sandy grit.

I was doing things that made the condition of my bike one of the last things on my mind. As long as the tubes had air I was satisfied. But I am back to taking care of it again. Cleaned em out, replaced the grease, and this time wrapped a wax covered piece of hemp string around the hub against the bearing shield to help keep grease in and dirt out.

They aren't in bad condition, it's just one side of the front has a visible groove in it. I can't feel it with my finger, but I can see the metal is worn. And some of the balls on that side got grooves in them too. But with good maintenance and care now they should be fine

oh man... flashbacks to the old skateboarding days. sigh.

http://www.shiner-inline.co.uk/images/reds_eight_pack.jpg

let's not start talking about ABEC-5 or some crap, aight?

Dam. I got bones swiss on my long board.

I still ride that from time to time.

Good days. Carving and bombing hills.

Lets go skurfing!

I still prefer loose ball because over time, servicing it tends to be cheaper and a lot simpler than replacing cartridge bearings. The ultegra front hub on my roadfix has given me a lot less sweat over the years than the surly rear.

High level Shimano hubs (xt/ ultegra) have nice, hard borazon-treated races that are pretty abuse resistant, and their labyrinthine seals are quite good too.

Pro tip, get your old ball bearings out of your hub with one of these:

http://www.modelfixings.co.uk/images/magnet_pen.gif

Stryper it sounds like you ought to replace your ball bearings. I follow sheldon's advice and do it every time i repack the hub because they're cheap.

let's not start talking about ABEC-5 or some crap, aight?

Can we at least agree that Red's are pretty much the greatest?

I really didn't even consider that for some reason, mostly because I'm super broke, but if it's cheap which it seems to be probably a worthy investment now.

What are some of the highest quality loose balls I can buy to replace them? And what size are they?
I think they are 3/16" after some searching but can anyone confirm.

...wrapped a wax covered piece of hemp string around the hub against the bearing shield to help keep grease in and dirt out.

I'd like to know more about this.

More words or a link, please.

I put my old 80's German bearings from my vert board into my daughters skateboard, the older sealed bearings gets, with popping the seal off and occasional cleaning, the faster they get. They spin forever now. I can imagine how awesome an old set would roll in a bike.

I really didn't even consider that for some reason, mostly because I'm super broke, but if it's cheap which it seems to be probably a worthy investment now.

What are some of the highest quality loose balls I can buy to replace them? And what size are they?
I think they are 3/16" after some searching but can anyone confirm.

They come in grades, which tell you how close the tolerances for sphericality are to a millionth of an inch. Grade 1000 bearings are to within 1000 millionths of an inch = 1/1000th. You might as well get Grade 25, which are made to be within 25 millionths of an inch, because even though they are more expensive than cheaper grades, the cost per hub's worth is only a little bit more and they are supposed to treat your hubs nicer even though the cups and cones on your hub will be made to far lower tolerances. I don't know if higher quality bearings than 25s are even commonly available, but 25s are what the nicest bike parts (Record/ DA/ etc) typically come with.

Front Shimano hubs use 3/16th bearings, and rears use 1/4. But yours might be different. The absolute safest thing would be to pop one out, take it to your lbs in a little ziploc bag and go "gimme a bunch of these". But you can try measuring your own if you're handy. Or, you can trust the internet, get the size it recommends and then just make sure to check that the bearings you wind up getting are the same size as one of the old ones before you install.

Just buying little bags of ~20 bearings at your lbs is cheap enough but in the long haul you'll be getting hosed. If you can handle an added initial expense, you can get much better prices per unit buying a larger lot of bearings, and then you'll never be stuck with having to hunt for a lost bearing in the middle of a hub repacking. Here, this will give you some idea of pricing structure:

http://www.jensonusa.com/store/product/BG409A03-Grade+25+Loose+Bearings.aspx

Can we be a little more careful with our syntax here. There is sealed vs unsealed, and then cartridge vs loose ball. The two have nothing to do with one another.