Wheel bearing ?

I tried the seach function, but it doesn't seem to be working at the moment.

I bought front and back wheel bearings on ebay from Ty-coon.com. They seem to be sealed on both sides. They are model #s: 6203-2RS front and 6205 RS X 2 and 6206 RS X 1.

Do I need to grease these bearings? And if not, how important is the Grease Seal? The small spring on the backside of the Seal seems to be out of shape, not totally round or sitting in it's groove.

6203-Z means one metal shield. That's what was originally used by Kawasaki until 1978. These had one side open so grease could be added. The 6203-2RS means 2 rubber shields. These are sealed and used from 1979 on Kawasakis. Sealed in grease, sealed in lubrication, so you don't ever grease these. On a motorcycle I'd rather grease my own bearsings personally. Surprisingly my 1997 Ford F350 Diesel truck uses 3 of the 6203-2RS on the belt idlers, and out of the blue sky one of them froze up a couple weeks ago and a pulley fell off the engine. Better that that a wheel falling off a motorcycle thank the Lord.
rstnick wrote:

I tried the seach function, but it doesn't seem to be working at the moment.

I bought front and back wheel bearings on ebay from Ty-coon.com. They seem to be sealed on both sides. They are model #s: 6203-2RS front and 6205 RS X 2 and 6206 RS X 1.

Do I need to grease these bearings? And if not, how important is the Grease Seal? The small spring on the backside of the Seal seems to be out of shape, not totally round or sitting in it's groove.

Rob,

Yes, grease them up yourself. The shields are easy to remove with a pick, and easy to put back on.

When I bought my new sealed wheel bearings I opened them up. 2 out of 3 had a thin, clear, small dab of grease. It looked like Vaseline or something... 1 bearing was bone dry. I packed them with wheel bearing grease and was good to go.

As far as the grease seal, I wondered if I needed it as the bearings are sealed now. I wound up buying a new one anyway, it was cheap enough.

Post edited by: OKC_Kent, at: 2006/01/10 16:19

Interesting, by design they are supposed to be sealed and have lubrication built in. If you can improve on the design and add your own lube, that's great. Not exactly by the book. In the trucks running the same bearing tensioning the belt around the engine they generally go 100,000 miles or so without removing the seals to grease them. I don't know how many times a motorcycle wheel would turn to equal 100,000 miles in the truck, but it would be a lot. Those bearings in the truck are constantly spinning at a pretty good RPM. 6203 is a good bearing. I've never ever had to replace a bearing yet in my Kawasakis, even with 167,000 miles on the 6203Z in the KZ650 and 80,000 miles on the 2RS in the KZ1000.
OKC_Kent wrote:

Rob,

Yes, grease them up yourself. The shields are easy to remove with a pick, and easy to put back on.

When I bought my new sealed wheel bearings I opened them up. 2 out of 3 had a thin, clear, small dab of grease. It looked like Vaseline or something... 1 bearing was bone dry. I packed them with wheel bearing grease and was good to go.

As far as the grease seal, I wondered if I needed it as the bearings are sealed now. I wound up buying a new one anyway, it was cheap enough.<br><br>Post edited by: OKC_Kent, at: 2006/01/10 16:19