How to GREASE, Un-Seize and Clean SEALED Bearings

I worked for a bearing manufacturer and this is the best advice I've seen about how much grease to use. No one ever goes back to the people who make the bearings to ask. And if you did you might just get a lot of equations from an engineer. One company has a chart. But your advice of about 25% of full pack is good. Cleaning it out with acetone works but it is not good for the plastic cages on some bearing and it is bad for the rubber seals, so be careful. WD-40 is pretty benign and only takes a little longer.

Straight to the point. No useless back story to fill time.Well done

I feel like this channel could be called “how to fix literally anything”. I don’t think I’ve watch a single video here that I haven’t learned something from!

I was a Maintenance and Engineering Manager for 30yrs +. 50% of bearings fail due to lack of lubrication and 50% fail due to too much. If you overpack a bearing, it will overheat and as grease is 90% oil, it will simply leak out causing premature failure. All the bearing manufacturers issue tables of the amount of grease per bearing and the frequency of lubrication (which is dependent on load, size, speed and environment). You are quite right, sealed bearings do need to be relubed (which can be a pain if they are located at the non drive end of a motor).. Again, the bearing makers offer superb maintenance advice for free. Hope this helps

I had an arguement with a fella years ago about this. I told him that you can service and relube a sealed bearing. He said the name itself tells you that you can not. he was fresh out of trade school too. I then asked him this. " Tell me how the oil escaped from a sealed bearing then " he actually got mad and started yelling as he had no answer. lol

I worked for many years at a specialty bearing manufacturer. Grease fill rate should be 30% standard use, 50% max for high temperature C4 bearings. Bearings are so cheap it’s not worth the labor to remove seals (most people will distort them which will lead to premature failure) unless you’re dealing with electric motor quality bearings (again, most will warp the seal during disassembly and will press the seal too deep during reassembly).

I've been repacking the sealed throw out bearings on old VW's for years. The old German TO bearings are so well made compared to the newer replacements. Good tips on overpacking. Really important on a TO bearing since it could throw excess grease all over the clutch.

I like to soak mine in a bath of gasoline, clean as a whistle! Then spray with brake clean or carb clean. And repack! Great video! Thanks!

In 2010 I bought a 1992 Geo Metro. Not long after, the wheel bearings started going out. The new bearings only had a small speck of grease--less than an 1/8 inch diameter. These are sealed ball bearings like in the video. I greased them properly and now have over 180,000 miles on the bearings with no problems. By the way, if you are the same sixtyfiveford who detailed how to change axles on my car (this was on the geo metro forum), thank you. Your method was much simpler and easier than my first attempt.

I used a hypodermic syringe full of grease with a small needle to carefully slip inside the bearing seal to re grease failing bearings on agricultural machines to stave off breakdowns during harvest season. Always remove the cutting tip of the needle first to avoid cutting the seal.

This is cool. Alot of people assume because bearings are sealed, you can't grease em. But that's probably me over greasing, so this is good to know too.

Good information and I use the same type of grease you showed at the end. I have a riding mower that gets grease after the season and mid-way into the season. It is still using the same bearings in the front wheels that were factory installed and this year it is still running after 12 years. Some of the belts and pulleys have been replaced in the past two years, but overall it has been reliable. I was surprised the drive belt lasted as long as it did, but I bought an OEM to replace it and replaced the one pully that caused it to lock up and break the belt. I still hear some noise, so it looks like I have to go back again and check the bearings on the ones I didn't replace. This information may be helpful once I get those idler pulleys out.

Touch your lawnmower spindle housing right after you’ve mowed. The housing will be hot. The grease thins out when it gets hot. The oil part of the grease can seep out under the pressure, heat and gravity. Any squeaking or growling coming from the mower deck is a dead giveaway that the spindles need servicing. Do all the spindles at the same time because if one is making noise? It won’t be long before the other ones will too.

Definitely will be the most informative 10 minutes of my day. Thanks for that lesson.

I really appreciate all the cool, practical stuff you have in your head and put on your channel for us, thanks for sharing

The big move in grease today in the industrial sector is towards synthetic base calcium sulphonate grease. Higher moisture repellent qualities, and much longer service life. There are more of this type available retail now than a few years ago. I have a feathering propeller on my sailboat that requires a grease with lower viscosity and high washout resistance, so Chevron Black Pearl NLG-1 is on duty 10:10

Good advice, thanks for sharing. The only bearings I've fully packed are those in a low speed or non continuous rotation application, and subject to water. ie, Mountain bike suspension bearings.

Great video and excellent information, thanks. It's good to see Ginger hasn't run out of energy, she is a sweety pie. ❤️

Great video, i figured this out years ago as I've been a mechanic for over 40 years. I used a grease injector needle and they work great.

Great informative psa👍🏻 been re-lubing sealed bearings for years!