Hub Water Ingress

harringtonp

I replaced the bearings on a superstar components front wheel during the summer. They were fine up to 2 weekends ago but last week the wheel was stiff and when I took the hub apart, I found both bearings were completely seized.

Opening one of the bearings showed water had entered on one side as the grease was washed out.

I can buy 2 more new bearings and put them in but am at a loss to explain what happened. I got a couple of years out of the original bearings and used them in all sorts of conditions.

You can see a photo of the crank and hub caps. The cap presses up against the bearing and as far as I remember was reasonably tight. I'm wondering were the bearings bad (they spun fine before insertion though), was there originally rubber seals that went between the cap and wheel that somehow got lost or did I do something not quite right when floating them in (wheel was fine afterwards though)

Any ideas ?

mp31

Bearings come with different types of seals. I'd recommend bearings with LLU seals - see below:

harringtonp

The bearings I put in it were

https://www.bearing-king.co.uk/bearing/609-2rs-budget-brand-sealed-deep-groove-ball-bearing-9x24x7mm/4792

Perhaps its a case of you get what you pay for.

The choice of that size from bearing king is

https://www.bearing-king.co.uk/products.php?d=9&D=24&bt=7

Would you have a recommendation ? Its reliability I'm after for these wheels, I'm not too concerned about how free the bearings run.

mp31

Those don't mention LLU seals specifically. I would suggest something like this:

https://www.hambini.com/bearings/fully-sealed/ntn-609-llu-9x24x7-609-fully-contacting-seal-genuine-bearing.html

BTW, I have no affiliations with the seller.

harringtonp

Thanks for that. With postage to Ireland being 11 sterling won't use that site but saw in their FAQs:

"For road racing, NTN LLB series, SKF RZ series and NSK VV series are recommended. For inclement weather or extended life, NTN LLU series, SKF 2RS series, NSK DD series or FAG 2RS series are recommended"

and bearing king stock the SKF 2RS series so will go for that.

Plastik

I have an Ambrosio Zenith front hub on my commuting wheels with similar style end cap/outer seals as in your picture. My "guy" does bearings on wheels at rock bottom prices for me, but this is because he uses the cheap bearings. QC is out the window with some of these companies. Sometimes you'll get a bearing that'll be decent other times they're destroyed in no time. Pure pot luck. The last time I changed them out, November 2017, I replaced them myself with a pair of Enduro bearings and I've put nearly 26,000km on them since then. Butter smooth still. Enduro, SKF, FAG, NTN - I don't bother with anything else anymore.

harringtonp

Emailed superstar components and they came back with the below which confirms the above discussion

"The Icon hubs are supplied with SKF bearings, these are a high-quality bearing. We worked with SKF to special spec our being to within standard use in the kind of conditions bike bearing

There are many reasons why the replacement bearings may not have lasted, cheaper quality bearings, poor installation or being washed with water under pressure. We are sorry to say that we cannot be 100% on the reason.

We would recommend replacing the bearing if our SKF bearings and installing the bearings with the correct tools."