3/4" Flange Bearing for Dump Bodies - ez bearing

2024-07-11 12:41:05

It was our standard practice to grease the farm equipment before heading out to the fields each time. It was, and still is, a good practice for the unsealed journal bearings and bushings.

Effects ofoverlubrication

I was used to packing automotive wheel bearings full before placing them back on the spindle (see Figure 2). This was a proven successful procedure as the bearing housing around the spindle had a cavity for the grease to go just out of the rolling elements’ path. The rolling elements still contacted the grease just enough to wick out enough oil to lubricate the bearing but not enough to cause churn and resistance.

A general rule of thumb is to pump grease equal to about 1/3 to 1/2 the volume of space between the inside and outside races of the bearing. (Now, does that mean minus the volume of the rolling elements?) Higher rpm bearings would get grease amounting closer to 1/3 the volume, whereas slower bearings would get closer to 1/2 the volume. That’s helpful, but I was still needing more definitive guidance.

In summary, when greasing, think about using the same or comparable and compatible grease, keeping dirt out of the grease and bearing, what type of bearing you are greasing, how much grease is needed, when the last time the bearing was greased and whether the bearing is running hot.

Finding a bad wheel bearing means you’ll have to replace it sooner rather than later. For this, it’s best to go with a quality replacement to ensure it lasts a long time. Fortunately, CarParts.com has you covered.

Richard McCuistian has worked for nearly 50 years in the automotive field as a professional technician, an instructor, and a freelance automotive writer for Motor Age, ACtion magazine, Power Stroke Registry, and others. Richard is ASE certified for more than 30 years in 10 categories, including L1 Advanced Engine Performance and Light Vehicle Diesel.

Much like with grinding noises, you can tell which side of your car has the bad wheel bearing by listening to the rumbling sound that it makes. If the rumbling sound gets louder when you make a turn, the faulty bearing is on the opposite side of the vehicle. The outer wheels must cover greater distances during turns, so they compensate by spinning faster. But more pointedly, the outer bearing is loaded more due to the dynamics of the turn and that amplifies the noise a bad bearing will make. If one of those outer wheels has a bad wheel bearing, the rumbling noise made by the faulty part will get louder.

You must raise your car with a floor jack to Inspect the wheels for wheel bearing-related wobbling. Put your vehicle in neutral and set down wheel chocks to prevent the other wheels from moving.

As an example, I would only use three pumps to regrease my electric motor because the bearings outside diameter measured two inches and the width was 3/4 inches. Or,

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Gently swerving back and forth on an empty smooth highway will usually point you in the right direction. If you swerve to the right, you’re loading the left. But usually this works better when chasing noises on front wheels than on the rear, although you can sometimes isolate rear bearing noise the same way. The best first thing to do is swap the tires around to see if the noise changes. This doesn’t cost anything and it may prevent you from buying and replacing bearings you don’t need to.

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Over greasing bearingssymptoms

Usually, the tires on your vehicle wear out at roughly the same rate. However, a really bad wheel bearing can change how its wheel spins, leading to issues like wobbling, although you’ll have heard noise a long time before the wheel starts to wobble.

Finally, a bad wheel bearing might make clicking sounds. When your vehicle accelerates, the clicks usually get louder and faster. You can narrow down which wheel bearing makes the clicking noises by gently turning the steering wheel from side to side while driving at a safe speed. If the clicking becomes softer when your car turns in one direction, one of the wheels on the opposite side has a faulty wheel bearing.

Pumping grease until fresh grease appeared worked well for slow speed journal bearings and bushings. This practice purged the journal of old grease and of any dirt that may have collected at the edge of the bearing. The bead of grease around the journal along the bearing also served as a barrier to dirt and contaminants from entering the bearing. Although sometimes the purged grease would collect in a hidden cavity and ultimately made a huge mess that I eventually had to clean. The lesson learned from that extra work was to estimate how much grease might be needed to purge the bearing, and if the bearing is taking more than that, to look at other places for the purging grease. Further, consistently going to regrease helps keep everything running smoothly.

Alternatively, a bad wheel bearing might produce a rumbling noise. You can hear the noise when you drive in a straight line. When you make a turn in your vehicle, the rumbling gets louder.

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Many years ago (but less than 40) I learned from an STLE education course a simple equation to regrease bearings. The equation is as follows, where OD is the bearing outside diameter and W is the bearing width, both in inches, to determine the number of ounces of grease to relubricate a rolling element bearing.

Many years ago, I would grease the farm implements by finding all the grease zerks, or grease fittings, on the machine and pump in grease until I saw fresh grease come out, somewhere. Fortunately, we only used one grease type on the farm, so grease compatibility wasn’t a concern there. However, I now realize my process still was flawed for several reasons and the important of going in to regrease.

Pro Tip: Note that this won’t always be the case though. In most cases, you’ll only see tire wear issues if the bearing is so worn out that the tire wobbles or runs out of line.

Can youovergrease a ball joint

However, broken wheel bearings aren’t the only possible reason for your car pulling to one side while braking. Usually, it’s bad brake parts that cause the brakes to become looser. It’s more likely for a brake rotor or brake equalizer to be the problem.

Having burnt out an electric motor or two on the farm, I realized a little grease is good, and there is such a thing as too much grease, but I didn’t know how to determine, nor deliver, the right amount of grease for specific rolling element bearings.

So, if too much grease is introduced to a shielded or sealed bearing, the grease has no easy path to alleviate the pressure, and the bearing will fail prematurely.

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Another method of determining the right amount and frequency of going to regrease rolling element bearings is to lubricate the bearing while it is spinning and then allow it to relieve itself of excess grease. Some bearings are designed with relief ports or plugs opposite of the grease zerk. Be sure the relief port is open and free of debris to allow the bearing to purge any excess grease. Some grease zerks have built-in relief ports. Purging of bearings without relief ports can be accomplished by removing the grease zerk for about five to 10 minutes after relubrication to allow the bearing to purge itself of any excess grease while it is still spinning. Be sure to replace the grease zerk after purging. Make note of how much grease was applied to help determine the optimum regrease frequency and quantity.

Can youovergrease an excavator

Fortunately, you can use your knowledge of bad wheel bearing symptoms to help you tell which part has developed an issue. You don’t need specialized tools—you can perform these tasks yourself. But realize that determining which bearing is bad may be tricky, and sometimes a tire noise will sound exactly like a bad bearing, so be aware of what you might be getting into.

Electric motors are particularly susceptible to over-greasing of their bearings beyond the potential for bearing failures. Excessive grease from electric motor bearings can find its way into the motor windings causing overheating and electrical shorts within the motor.

When a wheel bearing makes a grinding or growling noise, it indicates that the wheel bearing’s unlubricated metal parts are directly touching each other. The noise gets louder when your vehicle picks up speed. Listen to the grinding sound when you step on the gas pedal, and you can tell if the noise comes from your car’s front or rear.

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Simply enter your vehicle’s year, make, and model into our vehicle selector to narrow down the catalog to compatible products for your ride. We only offer the best parts on our website, so you’re sure to get a top-notch wheel bearing replacement that’s been tried and tested by industry professionals.

On the plus side, you can take advantage of this behavior to identify the side where the faulty/loose wheel bearing can be found. If the bad bearing displays other symptoms, such as making noise or causing its wheel to wobble, you can quickly narrow down the malfunctioning part.

Avoid driving your vehicle if one of its wheel bearings has a problem. It’s best to replace both sides even if only one side has a bad bearing. Replace the bad bearing as soon as your schedule and budget permits.

Bad wheel bearings often make strange noises like grinding, rumbling, and clicking. If you listen carefully, you can figure out the direction where the noise comes from, making it easier to narrow down which bearing needs replacement.

Bearinggreasinginterval

If your car starts pulling to one side when engaging the brakes, run a thorough check of the brake system first. Only look for a bad wheel bearing if you don’t find any evidence of a broken brake part.

Next, test each wheel assembly to see if it moves between the 3 and 9 o’clock positions. If the wheel wobbles, its wheel bearing might need replacement. If the assembly seems firm, try to move it between the 6 and 12 o’clock positions. Again, replace the bearing if the wheel feels loose.

Enclosed rolling element bearings, e.g., pillow block, shielded or sealed bearings, require less frequent relubrication. Electric motor bearings generally don’t require lubrication but once a year or every six months, when not operated in a harsh environment. Factors contributing to a harsh environment are higher levels of dust or dirt, water contamination, excessive vibration or temperatures above approximately 150 F. Harsh environments require an increase in relubrication frequency.

Shielded bearings, on the other hand, are designed to keep grease in the bearing and dirt out of the bearing. If too much grease is pumped into these bearings, the grease has no place to go, so the rolling elements must plow through the grease inside the bearing as it rotates. This churning tends to heat up and create pressure in the bearing. The heat changes the bearing fit and leads to premature wear and failure. Additionally, pressure can easily overcome the shield structure, resulting in the grease leaking out and dirt entering the bearing. The bearing now needs to be relubricated more frequently to keep in lubricant protecting the rolling elements and to purge out any contamination that is now able to enter the bearing.

Higher speed journal bearings are typically oil lubricated, operating in a full fluid or hydrodynamic lubrication regime. Although simple in concept, lubrication of high-speed journal bearings can be complex and is beyond the scope of this article.

How much grease to put in a bearing

Bearing failure due tooverlubrication

Pro Tip: That being said, if you’re looking for a noise, you might not be able to hear a bearing that isn’t loaded by the weight of the car even if you can hear it when you’re driving.

Take hold of each tire and spin the wheel assembly. If the part rotates without issue, you have nothing to fear from its wheel bearing. A tire that resists your attempt to spin it could have a bad bearing but further checks need to be done to make sure there are no other causes.

None of the grease guns I’ve used had a meter on it measuring pumped grease. So, to determine how many pumps on my grease gun equaled an ounce of grease, I used a postal scale. I pumped grease from my grease gun until I had one ounce piled on the scale. My gun took 18 pumps per ounce of grease. Other grease gun outputs may be as high as one ounce per 10 pumps or as low as one ounce per 28 pumps, as examples. Be sure to calibrate your grease gun.

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Pro Tip: Realize that a noisy wheel bearing can telegraph noise to a different wheel and cause you to misdiagnose which bearing is bad. Professionals even experience this.

An erratic wheel bearing can also lead to loose brakes. When you hit the brakes, your vehicle will pull into the same direction as the side with the bad bearing if the bearing is worn to the point of being loose.

Journal bearings consist of a shaft, which rotates within a conforming metal sleeve or bearing (the journal being the portion of the shaft encased in the bearing). Bushings are a form of journal bearing, except the shaft does not make a full rotation. Because the shaft is not fully rotating, a full fluid film is not developed and, thus, bushings operate in the boundary lubrication regime. Grease helps support the load in this regime.

The tire attached to the wheel with a faulty bearing will wear out at a different rate than the vehicle’s other tires, and its tread might display uneven wear.

The infrequent electric motor use on our family farm required even less frequent relubrication than once per year. In fact, many smaller electric motors today have sealed for life bearings and require no relubrication. Check with your electric motor supplier to determine if the bearings are sealed or what relubrication frequency is required. Do not assume that because the motor has a grease zerk it requires relubrication. Grease zerks may be installed on all motors to simplify procedures, reduce mistakes and lower costs during production.

Just like with wobbling wheels, you must jack up your vehicle first to check for stiff wheels. Once you’ve raised your car with a floor jack, you can test each wheel assembly for stiffness.

Speaking of wobbliness, you can also check the wheels and see if one of them wobbles or seems loose. A bad wheel bearing might loosen its attached wheel, making your car less responsive to your inputs through the steering wheel.

If you can safely measure the bearing temperature while it is in operation before going to regrease, compare that temperature to the operating bearing temperature five to 10 minutes after the regrease process. If the bearing has a noticeable drop in temperature, the bearing was likely starving for lubrication, and the regrease interval should be shortened.

Although I knew to not put the grease gun tip in dirt and to keep dirt out of the grease inside the gun, I never thought about the grease zerk (see Figure 1). Of course, I would knock off clumps of dirt from the zerk, but I did not realize the ball valve in the zerk has a small groove around the exposed portion of the ball that collected dust and dirt. By not thoroughly cleaning the grease zerk before greasing, I was pushing the dirt into the bearing or journal, promoting excessive wear. In my defense, I did not see that dirt. The unaided eye can only see particles down to about 40 microns in size. I learned much later that it is the “invisible” particles, smaller than 40 microns, that get between the lubricated sliding and rolling surfaces and, thus, cause excess wear. Ideally, I would have left a little grease on the zerk after greasing to seal the zerk’s ball valve against dirt. Then, a quick wipe of the zerk would remove the small amount of grease, and dirt, off the zerk before greasing the next time. Today, grease zerk caps are available for keeping dust and dirt off the zerk between greasings, so long as they are not knocked off or lost.

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A wheel bearing usually shows warning signs that it has worn out or broken down, and usually the first indicator is noise. But how can you tell which bearing has developed a problem? Your vehicle has four wheels, and each one has a wheel bearing. If you replace the wrong bearing, you’ll waste time and energy without resolving the issue. In the worst-case scenario, the wheel that you mistakenly tinkered with might also develop a problem.

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