Tips for oiling bearings
 

Hello,

Any tips? I have your standard ball bearings for my 1/10 touring car. Blue dust covers.

I assume that I can pop off one of the covers with a hobby knife, spray a little WD40 in there and pop the cover back on.

Is it any more difficult than that?

Thanks!

From my experience, replace the stock bearings with ceramics if you have the money, I just run metal shielded bearings from www.AvidRC.com they cost a buck a piece and I buy them in large quantity. Remove the outer shield from one side and spray the grease that is packed in them from the factory and lube them with a good light weight oil. I personally use prolong oil treatment. It is very light and will last a good while. when needed clean the bearings and relube them.
Also get yourself a bearing blaster cleaning jig from RPM, makes cleaning faster and less messy.

DONT USE WD-40!! It will seize the bearings eventually. Pop the seals off with an xacto knife, and then put it in container with some paint thinner, or easy off. After a while, take them out, let them dry and drip some shock oil inside, no joke. Very similar viscosity to speed cream used in lubes, so yeah thats it. They should be perfectly clean and well lubed. Good luck!

Thanks for the help guys. The bearings aren't dirty, they've just been sitting around too long.

I've got 40-60 weight oil, I guess I'll go with 40 in the shocks?

NO!!! Dont put shock oil in your bearing...
It is to thick and silicon based.

Id suggest getting proper bearing lube. Or motor lube from your LHS, the type for bushing and bearing.

Ed

whats wrong with silicon based products? does it harm the metal? i have been doing it with all my bearings in not only rc but in skating and stuff, and havent had any problems at all. The viscosity from my experience is very similar to what is usually used.

The point he is trying to make is that the viscosity is too thick for RC use, where loads may be minimal compared to industrial use. A nice bearing lube will allow the bearing to operate with less resistance. I use trinity's royal oil. A tube of that stuff lasts forever.

The two best oils I've found for use in r/c bearings are:

1. Trinity Royal Oil. Very thin, super low friction, but you'll need to re-oil more often than you might like due to the ultra low viscosity.

2. Mobil 1 5w30. Heavier than the Royal, still very low friction if you don't pile it in there. good for a season or more of racing unless the bearings get hammered by impacts and turn rough. A quart bottle from the local Mobil station will cost you five or six bucks and last for life.

For what its worth, the Prolong oil treatment that katfish recommended is great stuff, just hard to find around here. If you can get it locally, you won't go wrong with it.

do you try to re-install the dust covers? or do you just run them w/o covers?

Reinstall the dust covers. That is why most people use metal shields.. Easier to get on and off and less friction. It's mostly just the hub bearings anyway.

AvidRC makes a half metal half rubber one I use for hubs that work really well. And at $1 each you just buy a bunch.

You "should" clean your bearings, rebuild your diff, and regrease your axles more often then most people do...

If I'm 'treating' the bearings in the hubs, once I've removed the shields from one side of the beaing I don't bother trying to refit them, usually because I've damasged them taking them off.

Just make sure when rebuilding the hubs, that the side with no shield faces inside, with both bearings in one hub like this the open side of the bearings face eachother (inwards), when the driveshaft is fitted there is only the gap between the bearing and the axle for any crap to get through.

Skiddins

i use fully syn engine oil to put into my bearing..so far it's perform quite well...

do all/most bearings from stock kits ie. losi, AE have removalble shields?
may be posting in wrong forum, but im coming from 1/10 off road.

............

How in the world do you get off metal shields without damaging them? I certainly can't do it... what's the trick?

I never take the covers off. When you do that you get too much dust in them. They also get bent and causes friction. What you want to do is hold the blearing with your thumb and index finger. Keep it at an angle and spray the bearing from the top into the bearing through the seals. Spin the bearing while spraying, then spin and spray again until all the dirt runs out from the other side. Don't flip it and spray the other side because you'll shoot dirt right back into the bearing. After I let the bearing dry out, I place 2 drops of Boca Lighting bearing oil that comes in a syringe. Super light weight like Royal Oil or Niftech oil. This will be good for a few race weekends. If you want to clean them and they are still good and lubed, just wipe them clean with a rag and put them back in the car.

If you look carefully you will see a metal "ring" tucked inside right above the sheild. I have always used a needle and slowly pried out one end. Carefull of that ring that comes out as the tips are pretty sharp, I had one go pretty deep into my finger :cry:

When I build my kits, I make it a habit to re-lube my bearings. While buidling the T2R Pro, I noticed that some bearings did not spin as freely. I also noticed bearings I cleaned out and re-lubed barely had enough oil left.

Also, ceramic bearings are the way to go if you can afford them. They are low friction and sping "gooder". :D

always degrease new bearings overnight. take the dustcovers off, then douse them in motor spray. For lubrication, I use 0wt motor oil.

I degrease bearing in a cleaned baby jar overnight.
Next, I dry and soak them in a clean baby jar of PB Blaster.:nod:

Personally, I won't take the shields off to clean them out.

For what little less resistance you gain, you loose the ability to keep the bearing clean, and you probably weaken the bearing by allowing the outside of the bearing to be partially unsupported with the sheild you took out... A board tap may even cause the bearing to bind up, not nice to happen when you've spend all day getting that TQ...

Maybe you dont weaken them by removing a shield, but i'd rather not chance it, for the sake of the tiny amount of resistance you loose, proabably one board tap and any advantage you have lost.

You could also be unbalancing the bearings, by allowing one side to spin a little more free than the other side.

IMHO, Any good flush out, let it dry and relube will be sufficient for most applications, and definatly more than sufficient for club level racing.

y u never tell u..? :sneaky:

forgot to mention that I do put the seals back on. just easier to get the thick initial grease out that way.