Wheel bearing grease

[TrikeKid]

I use Chevron NLGI2 on everything I grease. It's the same stuff my dad uses to grease up everything on his work truck ('79 Kenworth W900). Works fine year 'round here, but I did have one occasion where it didn't really want to pump through the gun, but it was also like 17 degrees out (tool room where the grease gun was isn't climate controlled).

[MetroMPG]

Originally Posted by tasdrouille

Nonetheless, I went with Timken synth industrial grease which is NLGI grade 1.5 with a -50F to 356F operating temp range and a very high viscosity index.

Sounds like a good choice - synth for those of us whose cars see a wide temp range makes sense.

Can I get some of that from you when I stop in Quebec in September? I'd repack my bearings. I doubt there's synth in them now.

[tasdrouille]

Frank,

Maybe I'm just dumb, but how did you do it? I would like to try it someday as I can get cheap Chinese bearings and races for 5$ per side. How do you get the oil in? Can I just drill a hole in the hubcap and install a plug?

Thanks

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

Sounds like a good choice - synth for those of us whose cars see a wide temp range makes sense.

Can I get some of that from you when I stop in Quebec in September? I'd repack my bearings. I doubt there's synth in them now.

Sure! I have more than I'll probably ever need.

[bgd73]

I am not one to speak brands.. BUT. I do have a 22 year old car, and many others all work done by me...
valvoline synthetic high temp wheel bearing grease. Phenomonal. It even took a few DAYS after getting through regular stuff to gain a viscosity you could feel in the gas pedal. Every car I have slapped it into. This grease also reveals bearing metals that were dry (they usually soak them wherever they came from but soemtimes its not enough) if the metal was not soaked enough, it looks like the grease disappears, after a run of some miles, days whatever,and I refill again. worth the process as of today. I found nothing else even close to it...

[MetroMPG]

Tas: I'm embarassed to say I never got around to repacking my bearings with the grease you brought to the ship. It's on the list though.

[dichotomous]

havent tried the valvoline grease, but I have heard great stuff about their transmission oils. I have used mobil 1 synthetic wheel bearing grease (its a cool purple color) and its worked pretty well. havent grease a wheel bearing with it, since mine are sealed and when they go bad or get slow, I just get new ones.

[guudasitgets]

My day job is art a investment casting company and we have some water resistant grease I used in the Toothbrush Special. They use it in a high preasure waterblast cell, so I figured it would work pretty good for wheel bearings, so far so good

[stovie]

I took some 90w gear oil and mixed it with the grease just to make it a little bit more maulable and used it on a bike tire and that thing just kept spinning after i spun the wheel it took like 2-3 minutes for it to stop i think??(it was 8 years ago) i was just wondering what would happen if u added a little bit of lucas to the grease?? maybe make it a little bit runnier but still stick?? i,m going for a medium between a paste and a liquid that still adhers to the barings

[Frank Lee]

I've been running one of my Coupe's rear wheel bearings in 90 wt. ONLY- no grease at all- for I think 9 years now as a test. Seems to work pretty good.

[saand]

Hey Frank,
thats very encouraging info, i wonder does anyone have a procedure for changing the grease in their bearings. If i dont do this mod myself i can at least put the info in the wiki.

I am a little hesitant to do it myself as i am not sure of the reliability and if something goes wrong it will be a fairly impressive failure.

frank do you have any feel for how much improvement different bearing grease got you. anyone know if someone has done a before and after coast down test or something like that.