The are only a few cast iron engine blocks left in the auto industry as well. Or do they mix nickel in with Aluminum blocks nowadays? Bottom brackets on bicycles have also been sealed cartridge type for years now? The only people silly enough to throughly clean and rebuild the old school cup style BB are folks like us, hehe.,,,,BD


Campagnolo grease?

IMHO any decent lithium grease will do for assembly work, seat post, stems, bolts, BB and HS threads, skewers...... but for bearing a good waterproof BEARING grease, bicycle, auto, motorcycle, airplane, as long as it is designed for bearing is a must.

Campai grease? well if you do an overhaul twice a year

I've been using the big 1-lb. tub of Mag-1 wheel bearing grease for every application that calls for grease, inside and outside of cycling. Like lubricating the worm screw of my garage door opener. What do you folks think of that? My LBS recommended it when I repacked a hub for the first time. I don't know if I'll ever use up the whole tub. One thing I'll do next time, if there ever is a next time, is buy a tube instead so the grease in the tub stays cleaner. I'd probably go for the Park Polylube.

In another thread, someone who claimed to have bearing industry experience stated the irregularities on cheaper, lumpy bearings can help carry the lube to where it's needed...but grade 10 or smoother balls sometimes had lubrication starvation issues related to their ultrasmooth finish.


If this is true, then the smoother bearings should be lubed with synthetic grease as the synthetic oil it's made from has about four times the film strength of mineral oil.

All in all I would say the viscosity was more important to the larger ball bearing hubs such as the IGH hubs or to coaster brake hubs because you have pads running against a brake surface in a bath of grease and there is a large surface to create drag.

These are wonderful threads, and I'm glad this one was brought back.

I ride in the rain a lot, and still use cup and cone Ultregra hubs on my rain bike, at least until those cups are gone or I can't get the cones any more. I judge how frequently to repack the hubs very simply: I hold a wheel with the axle in my fingers and spin it. If it spins rough or there's drag, I repack it. In the winter, I'll repack as often as once/month.

I'm another user of the blue boat trailer wheel bearing grease. I've found that the best thing I can do to make a hub last longer is to fill the bearing cavity completely with grease, so that it squeezes out in a major way when I assemble it. Even so, sometimes when I strip the hub, I'll see liquid water in there. But with the boat trailer stuff, no damage. The only damage I've had was from getting grit in there and not repacking immediately, so that I had to replace a cone. I'm always amazed when I repack a new hub and see how little grease the factory put in, and how much room was left for water.

I use new balls every time I repack - they're cheap.

You are increasing your drag by forcing the grease to shear between the axle and hub shell.

No kidding! Can we quantify that? Pretty small, anyway. Wheel still spins freely, but the valve stem does not center at the bottom of the wheel. I'm also decreasing drag over time by keeping the water and crud out of the hub. It is a rain bike.

They may buy grease from the same manufacturer but they can spec the qualities for a bike. For example, I can virtually guarantee that your auto parts supplier tub will be one nlgi grade thicker.

I don't like finish line teflon, though. I had a tube for less than a year and it's separating like crazy.