Do I need to grease my wheel bearings before install?

YES, they need to be greased with BEARING GREASE unless you bought the bearing and hub pre-assembled from Timken and spent hundreds of dollars. You DID NOT buy a hub and bearing for $100 so if you think you did you didn't....you will only be receiving the bearing.

See here....http://www.timken.com/en-us/products/lubrication/Pages/faq.aspx


I think 1/2 the people who own Tacoma's don't clean out the shipping grease and pack the bearings with bearing grease. Properly installed bearings with good grease and good seals should last just as long as the original set.

If your only getting 10k out of your new bearings before failure your doing it wrong... IMO.

 

My wheel bearings sounded like hell, and that changed after the new ones. However, I took them all apart. IIRC on both sides the out (or was it the inner?) races looked good but I found some dirty dark looking grease, no pitting spalling etc... though. Same with the matching rollers and plastic cage. The other races also looked good but they still had the factory white grease in there, not a huge amount mind you.

After inspecting I didn't really find anything that lead me to believe they had any problems but they sounded like ass so ???

That was at 40 something thousand miles.





What does it all mean?

IDK

 

Poor design?

Poor quality?

Engineered perfectly to cost the owner money and make the dealer money?

 

Well I think the grease on two of those bearings burnt up. However the rollers, cage, and races looked perfect still. How long they would have lasted that way? IDK

On the other hand, the other two bearings still looked perfect and still have small amounts of the shitty white grease they come with.

I don't think they come with adequate grease but I think Toyota probably intended them to come this way, just cheap more than anything. Probably works "okay" for a lot of trucks that see light duty use, which is most of them.

I'd still pack them. I'm just saying...

 

Yours both look much better then my originals at 70k.

Well at least now we have a thread to send people links to or maybe (and I know this is crazy) they will do a search and find the answers themselves


My new ones got plenty O grease when I put them on....prob to much

(no pics of bearings greased up before hub install)

 

lol I guess that works

 

So far so good. Got about 20k on them.

Would be more but my engine needed more lube then I gave it

 

The Tacomas wheel bearings are sealed and should not be taken apart to apply more grease...while I agree with slightly greasing the seals and things I disagree with you saying you need to pack these bearings with grease. Packing a bearing with grease does not mean slathering it all over the front and back of it.

 

Hmm..my last front wheel bearing on the driver looked and sounded like ass, no question that they needed to be replaced. Now my passenger side is making noise. Sometime this week I will tear it down and go from thefe

 

I gave my bearing (sealed in it's packaging) and hub to a shop to have the old pressed out and new pressed in. Do you think they would have packed the bearing?

 

Very doubtful

 

Please tell me more.

Please tell me how I'm wrong. Please tell me how these are "sealed" bearings.

Please tell me why they shouldn't be packed with grease or taken apart.

Cite your experiences and reasoning.

Edit: Also, maybe you missed his post where he said he had packed his bearings but only had those pictures. While I certainly don't think greasing the outside is needed I see no reason it would do any harm and it may help to prevent corrosion and water intrusion if water passes the seals. Though I'd have probably cleaned off the lip of the seal where the CV enters so as to prevent buildup of crud.

 

Thanks for the insight LOL. I was not actually asking a question. I already knew the answer and what to do.

very hard to take pics of packed bearings when ball of grease is in hands. I also needed to keep those suckers clean so they got packed and put right back into the box.

I wiped it all down after it was installed. I just have those pics from general assembly (on my kitchen table lol). I always over grease



it's a problem I have

Hell no.

 

Doh... Guess I'll be redoing that at some point.

 

All depends on the quality of the employees at the shop. A guy who knows his shit knows the difference between lithium grease and bearing grease.

 

Ok after reading this over, I'm getting conflicting advices. The Bearing I have (pic will be posted) seemed to be packed already and I'll have to disassemble them and pack more grease. (according to a few on here) or should I just put it in as is.

Mind you this will be my first time putting wheel bearings in. so any info would be greatly appreciated

 

You think that's a sufficiently packed bearing?

 

This bearing is junk dont install it rubber seal is missing

 

Hell I don't know. lol, Is it???

 

are you sure? I got two of those and they look the same. and when I looked up online the pics match up to what I have.

here is another pic