Wheel Bearing Question

[Cobb]

Knew I had a video of them, here you go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30a5vsXswwI

[Lane_S]

Couldn't find any drag reduction springs for my VW at NAPA or Raebestos. I sent a request to each for the Volkswagen vehicles.

[Cobb]

Interesting... Its part of their premium brake care when you buy parts. I think its fairly generic that its more of a one size fits all. It spread the pads at each end before the bracket and the brake material.

[oil pan 4]

Another way to reduce brake drag is to replace the brake piston seal when you replace the pads.
This seal is like an o-ring, but instead of being round its got a square cross section profile. This square profile allows the seal to pull back the piston a tiny bit when the brakes are released.
I fear that with age the seal loses this ability.

The pad springs help the square o-ring do its job.

[Vekke]

in my lupo i took out the old bearings. cleaned old grease out. installed redline bearing grease where i had mixed some ws2. i also left the nut little loose. i measured the effect by rising wheel in air and rotate it with your hands.
normal car which brakes arent dragging is 7-15s
if you have good stock setup is 15-25s
modified rear wheel bearings is 25 up to 65 seconds. you can feel the difference i would say. can you see it at the pump is another question. i try to get some results with the A8 project.

[Lane_S]

After many emails and phone conversations with Micro-Blue, it appears they aren't the least bit interested in helping me out. Their "Guru"knows jack about customer service. I had to supply them the bearing numbers and still after asking for a quote on pricing I get no replies. Not the the way I would run a business.

Napa tells me the springs will fit certain cars and VW isn't one of them.

I'll look into the seal and replacing the bearings with a repack of a better grease.

[oil pan 4]

You don't need those clowns.
Ok go to a gun store and some Remington dry teflon spray. Not the oil with teflon. Has to be dry film.
When you pull the bearing apart keep them matched to their respective hub and race.
Clean them up real good, coat the bearings and races with the Teflon spray.
Then take your choice of grease, preferably something synthetic or synthetic blend with a temperature range of -40'F to +400'F and pack the bearings, coat the cleaned bearing surfaces with it.
Plan on using enough grease to fill about 1/3 of the volume of the total bearing cavity.
Install them snug but not tight since they are already broken in.

Hazards to look out for:
Grease is bad for you, used or new.
The bearings and races were likely cadmium coated.
So wear rubber gloves.

[Lane_S]

Thanks for the info.

[spookybathtub]

Back when I played roller hockey, the skate bearings were hugely important. Buy some cheap skates, swap the bearings for ABEC 9's, and you'll see the wheels spin 10x longer in a spin test. How could this not be beneficial for FE?

[Vekke]

Its all related can you see the effects in your fuel consumption or not.

I also have changed my roller skates bearings and it did have huge impact to skate speeds. Also when I modified my cars bearing it had a impact but its very difficult to measure specially if you change many things at the same time like I did last time. I think my bearings were these: ILQ 9 Pro Inline Skate Bearings | Skate Parts | K2 Skates 2014 | Shop

I did participate one roller skate marathon and my cheap market skates had highest downhill speeds as the pro skaters speeds were, Ofcourse I was little bit heavier than most skaters but generally no one was faster, even my rolls werent max hard like they should be for max speed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6DrZ5vLXQQ

Bigger/heavier the machine higher portion of fuel goes to friction losses and in my opinion the effect of the bearing friction increases.

On a car freespind is generally 10-17 seconds. on my Lupo I was able to get that freesping time over 60 seconds.

Now what you should remember that new bearings is not always best as testing has proven that cars new bearing can have so tigth seal that it actually slows down the bearings free roll time.

What you should also notice that free roll time is not necessary directly related to cars friction resistance, but I will take 60 seconds free roll bearings any time compared to that 20 second.

I believe you could easily find test results of that skate theme from free roll time vs coast distance tests?