[SuziBlu]

Hi folks,

I want to order some wheel bearings, but have no idea of the part number, and my phone is cactus, so can't ring for the numbers.

Can anyone give me the numbers, I am going to be ripping my diffs out, so out comes the axels, and all bearings are to be replaced.

Any one know of any reason not to use ceramic ones, Im going to 10" rims, big offset, so life expectancy of bearings is limited, but ceramic are presumed to be around 4 times the life.

[want33s]

PM Weaves... He is the resident bearing specialist.

I've never heard of ceramic bearings...

[Zook_Fan]

x2 on weaves. got his bearings last week. excellent delivery time and very good quality bearings.

[SuziBlu]

Jas, ceramic is all the rage, you can even get ceramic knives that stay sharp a very long time, buggers to sharpen but.

Ceramic bearings have a 4 times life expectancy, sadly no one in oz sells them, or none that I can find, so its from OS.

Weaves, cool, taa mate

[want33s]

These guys say they do ceramic bearings but I can't find any listed on the website.
Shoot them an email.
http://www.google.com.au/url?q=ceramic+ ... 9944mYj9hQ

[SuziBlu]

Email sent.

I only found one mob, who sounds fair dinkum, he tells me he does not have the part numbers, but if I can supply them, he should have them, or he will make them for me.

http://www.bocabearings.com/

May be expensive, but quality counts, and with dirty great big offset, I recon the added life will make them cheap.

[weaves]

PM replied to.

[weaves]

As for the ceramic bearings, they are usually only use in extremely high speed and or high temperature situations, mainly in turbos and turbines. I didn't even know you could get them in wheel bearing configurations.

weaves

[SuziBlu]

Weaves, they make the ceramic jobs for push bikes, motor bikes, and hopefully, WT Sierras.

The reason for them being on bikes, is the very low drag they present, and ultra low heat.

The BOCA man said that he will either have them, or make them for me.

Thanks for the PM info.

[weaves]

SuziBlu asked me about strength of the bearings i sell and i thought i would answer it here.

The load rating of a wheel bearing far exceeds the loads it will face with big offset or wide wheels. For example a rear wheel bearing on a zook have a dynamic load rating of 27kn (2.75 tonne) and static rating of 15.3kn (1.56 tonne) , now times that by 2 bearings per axle, so effectively you have a axle capable of holding 5.5 tonne of rolling force.

compare this to the fronts, you have 2 bearings per wheel, 4 across the front housing, each on of those bearings is capable of withstanding a dynamic load of 66kn (6.73 tonne) and a static load of 78kn (7.9 tonne). Thats a load rating of 13.46 dynamic tonne per wheel, or a static load of 15.8 tonne. i seriously doubt a set of offset wheels will on their own destroy wheel bearings.

You have to keep in mind that these figures are the very limits of what they can withstand at perfect operating conditions.

so in a perfect world wheel bearings should last tens of thousands of hours of work.

What does cause them to fail however is foreign matter contaminating the grease and acting like sandpaper as you drive. When going through dirt and mud it gets right up against your seal, gets past the first lip and gets stuck between the two sealing lips and wears the sealing surface away, then it eventually wears so bad that dirt and mud gets straight past and into you bearings.

The best way to protect your bearings is regular maintinence, pulling the bearings out, flushing, and replacing the grease and seal and inspecting the sealing surface and maintaining that aswell.

i hope this answers a few questions.

[SuziBlu]

Great stuff, thanks weaves.

Why is it then that everyone says that big offsets will kill bearings in a very short space of time.

This is what made me start looking for the very best there is, regardless of price.

Is it that people are killing the bearings, and blaming the wheels ?

[weaves]

A combination of warn shafts, sloppy tolerances and incorrect torque settings would be factors to why a bigger offset will kill wheel bearings.

if you have any type of play in the setup, the wider offset wheels will put all the leverage on the outter bearing and create movement through the bearings/stub and then it would put extra stresses on the seal, causing that to fail quicker.

weaves