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Rear wheel bearing failure

  • Thread starter Deleted member 1183
  • Start date
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Deleted member 1183

I was cleaning my bike today and had the rear end off the ground to spin the wheel while cleaning. I then noticed excessive play in the rear wheel bearings. In short they are shot and there is sufficient play in them for me to get them sorted asap, before they collapse completely. This in my experience, is too soon to have this issue. The bike has about 17000Kms on it which equates to about 10500 miles.

Accordingly I am suggesting that y'all check your rear wheel for bearing play. A member of the Kevin Ash forum " Kharli" has also replaced his rear wheel bearings but at a higher mileage than mine. To be honest I am surprised at such a basic failure at such an early stage in the life of the Motorcycle.
 
Sorry to hear of the failure, but thanks for posting about it, Grump. I've wondered before how long one should expect motorcycle wheel bearings to last. My wheels are not exhibiting signs of bearing failure yet, but apparently it's something I should keep in mind earlier than 150,000 miles. :)
 
I was cleaning my bike today and had the rear end off the ground to spin the wheel while cleaning. I then noticed excessive play in the rear wheel bearings. In short they are shot and there is sufficient play in them for me to get them sorted asap, before they collapse completely. This in my experience, is too soon to have this issue. The bike has about 17000Kms on it which equates to about 10500 miles.

Accordingly I am suggesting that y'all check your rear wheel for bearing play. A member of the Kevin Ash forum " Kharli" has also replaced his rear wheel bearings but at a higher mileage than mine. To be honest I am surprised at such a basic failure at such an early stage in the life of the Motorcycle.


IMHO, a lot of people nowadays (me included of course, heehee) get caught out with unintentionally neglecting time honoured "basic wear and consumable" items. Like bearings. With most (especially Japanese) modern vehicles being so user friendly and purchase and forget, things can get taken for granted.

If you look closely in any manuals or literature, you will probably find lots of listed items to check every so many miles, and asterisks aplenty, with: "or more frequently under xxx conditions"

If a batch of assembled wheel bearings got, say, a tiiiiny little bit less grease than the usual amount, then we can see bearings fail within a bike's service life, or far sooner than most have lucked out with.

Wheel bearings, steering head bearings, swingarm bearings, etc., are all fair game in my eyes, for needing TLC far more often than most will ever see. They are cheap, easily inspected, easily replaced. (Unless we are talking BMW.) (go on, ask me how I know...)

With my DR350, I would usually replace the wheel bearings every season or so, based on my riding with them under water for a majority of their lives, lol.
 
I had to repair the steering bearings on my 2009 BMW G650gs (36,000 miles) a couple of months before I traded. The bearings would stick in the middle, I loosened up the front end and greased them really well and no more sticky bearings. Now, my C50 cruiser has 67,000 miles on it and the steering is the same now as new (no maintenance-a big pita to loosen the front end). Bearings are normal wear items and depending on the location may wear out faster-wetter, saltier (if that is a word), sandier, can cause bearings to wear out much faster than normal-also, tightening up the wheels too much will also cause the bearings to fail.
 
Wheel bearings, steering head bearings, swingarm bearings, etc., are all fair game in my eyes, for needing TLC far more often than most will ever see. They are cheap, easily inspected, easily replaced. (Unless we are talking BMW.) (go on, ask me how I know...)
I'll wager the steering head bearings on a Piaggio MP3 are tougher than your BMW to replace. Lots of problems as Piaggio improperly set preload on many of them and provides no way to grease them.

On the MP3 forum a guy that goes by Gonzo came up with a way to rotate the bearing cage slightly to wear on a different portion of the race to delay replacement it is such a P.I.T.A. It is known as the "Gonzo Tweak"
 
I'll wager the steering head bearings on a Piaggio MP3 are tougher than your BMW to replace. Lots of problems as Piaggio improperly set preload on many of them and provides no way to grease them.

On the MP3 forum a guy that goes by Gonzo came up with a way to rotate the bearing cage slightly to wear on a different portion of the race to delay replacement it is such a P.I.T.A. It is known as the "Gonzo Tweak"


My buddy and I jokingly refer to this as the "Space Shuttle bearing assembly". I was quoted over $1,200.00 for a bearing replacement, from the Dealer where I bought my bike. (not including, belt, cog, ABS sensor, sensor ring, concentric adjuster, etc., etc.

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The bearings (one giant needle style, one giant roller style) seize (or spin) on the axle, the axle seizes in the concentric, the wheel wobbles and takes out the ABS sensor, the sensor ring, sometimes the rotor, the drive belt, the rear belt cog. If you are lucky this will happen when going slow or give you enough time to pull over before potentially locking up the rear wheel and causing you to crash or have a sudden loss of power...

Massive world wide recall by BMW for this now, finally. (after only 8 years of it happening...)
 
Bearings are normal wear items and depending on the location may wear out faster-wetter, saltier (if that is a word), sandier, can cause bearings to wear out much faster than normal-also, tightening up the wheels too much will also cause the bearings to fail.

+2^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Also...................Pressure washers are the bearing and seal worst nightmare ........................
 
I am used to steering bearings getting notchy. Some do it earlier than others. I don't like it but at the end of the day they never do even one full revolution in their housings, and are perpetually moving within a few degrees throughout their life. However wheel bearings are a different ball game altogether. They spin sufficiently to avoid a tight spot, yet they can leave you stranded, while steering bearings will not. I still say that 10500 miles is far too early for wheel bearings to fail. This is the first bike in my 44 years of motorcycling that has had wheel bearing failure while the bike is still under warranty.

I am surprised at you Honda, not moaning, but surprised. Good to say that there are so few issues with this bike otherwise. :cool:
 
I agree that 10,500 miles is way too soon but as is pointed out mechanical devices have manufacturing tolerances and some bad product gets out there and while Honda has very few quality issues I recall that Northwest Rider had his swingarm bearings replaced under warranty so I'm taking advantage of this reminder to check my wheel and swing arm bearings.
 
My old 1971 R60 had grease fitting on the swing arm bearings. Just pump it till you saw grease come out. Never had a problem with them just wheel bearings. Before I discovered the greese fittings the left bearing went out. Also on my '97 Yamaha RSTD the right rear wheel bearing went bad , fell apart.
 
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I agree that 10,500 miles is way too soon but as is pointed out mechanical devices have manufacturing tolerances and some bad product gets out there and while Honda has very few quality issues I recall that Northwest Rider had his swingarm bearings replaced under warranty so I'm taking advantage of this reminder to check my wheel and swing arm bearings.

Remembering......
I think NW Rider's swing arm play.............turned out to be a loose swing arm bolt. ????????
 
Remembering......
I think NW Rider's swing arm play.............turned out to be a loose swing arm bolt. ????????

Which is exactly what I was thinking when I read the original post. I hate to second guess someone's diagnosis, but I know I've been guilty of tunnel vision when troubleshooting (I see that X is broke, so the problem must be Y, without considering that the problem could be Z). Is it possible the axle nut is loose? Or that spacers were not installed in the correct order? I haven't had the back wheel off the NC, so I'm not familiar with the exact arrangement there.
 
Shop had a look at the wheel today. New bearings and seals ordered for it. No issue or argument.
 
Which is exactly what I was thinking when I read the original post. I hate to second guess someone's diagnosis, but I know I've been guilty of tunnel vision when troubleshooting (I see that X is broke, so the problem must be Y, without considering that the problem could be Z). Is it possible the axle nut is loose? Or that spacers were not installed in the correct order? I haven't had the back wheel off the NC, so I'm not familiar with the exact arrangement there.


Just to be clear I was not trying to second guess the OP problem or dealer diagnosis but rather just confirming NW Rider's problem was loose swing arm that ended up to loose attaching bolt. To my recall NW Riders had no problems or concern with the wheel itself or the wheel bearings>
 
Update. It was the right hand bearing that failed, on the Disc side. However the Shop ( M50 Honda in Dublin ) replaced all three bearings and seals. Given that I removed the wheel myself today and brought it over to them, they did it while I waited. That is good service. Delighted to be back on the road again.
 
Every time I have my wheel off, front or back, for a tire change I always clean and add some grease in the cavity of the wheel. When bikes are put together at the factory them skimp on the grease on most every area of the bike.
 
Every time I have my wheel off, front or back, for a tire change I always clean and add some grease in the cavity of the wheel. When bikes are put together at the factory them skimp on the grease on most every area of the bike.

I do also, but regretfully it made no difference on this occasion.
 
Not related to Honda but just before I traded my Burgman for my NC, I had to replace the rear bearings in the Burg. The grease was VERY dry and not enough in there. It was so dry, I was able to roll it into a ball after I (literally) dug it out.
So, it's not just a Honda prob.
 
I am going through this right now. My bike has 19000 kms. The shop told me the chain has kinks in it causing premature failure of the rear wheel bearing. I still have the stock chain. Looking into if my chain should have been replaced as part of the recall. My bearing hasn't failed but i need to replace the chain to prevent damage.


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