Greased up sealed bearings

I got a new Hope sealed bearing headset installed at my LBS.

When I got it back from them I took the fork out and had a look see at my headset, the sealed bearings had grease shloped all over them…

And there was me thinking that sealed bearings don’t need grease because they are sealed, and grease on them would only attract muck?

“sealing” is a relative term, (there will be **** all grease inside, but that’s another story). They prob greased it to stop corrosion, it won’t transmit dirt into the bearing.

Is the grease simply outside the bearing? it will do no harm. ( apart from maybe hold som dirt) Its probably from greasing the headtube and other parts before putting it thru the headset. Some folk will tell you to take the seals out and regrease the bearings and to cover them with grease others believe this will damage the seals and lead to premature failure.

Certainly I do not grease sealed bearings nor slap grease outside of them and i get long life from them

Grease won’t “attract” dirt, but it can retain dirt that gets in. Now if it’s on the bearing seals in a hope headset, any dirt that gets in has already got past one seal so it’s not likely to go back out- but catching it in that extra grease may stop it going further. Or it might not. I doubt it’ll hurt, and it might help.

(I am on the side of the fence that says bearings not designed for mountain bike use often don’t have sufficient grease for mountain bike use… And just had to replace most of the lefthand bearings in my Hemlock, which were all fitted as they came out of the packet, but none of the right hand bearings which all had grease added (*) But this seems slightly off the subject)

(SCIENCE. F*** yeah)

I am on the side of the fence that says bearings not designed for mountain bike use often don’t have sufficient grease for mountain bike use

It’s no side of any fence, it’s a fact.

I’m one of the people that add extra grease to stuff.

And just had to replace most of the lefthand bearings in my Hemlock, which were all fitted as they came out of the packet, but none of the right hand bearings which all had grease added (*) But this seems slightly off the subject)

Interesting piece of data

Not really conclusive tbh… Little bearings can be erratic. But I think I’m going to do it with other bearing sets, see what happens- not often you get exact matches left/right, even front hubs have different levels of protection because of all the brake apparatus.

Think I’d add a disclaimer as well, which is that I’m pretty good, so I don’t mangle seals… But it’s very easily done, and I’ve done it in the past when I was less good.

I cover sealed bearing in grease. If they’ve got grease on the surface, they’re less likely to hold water against the surface.

I also believe in carefully lifting seals and adding grease. Bike bearings don’t get close to the design speed of these bearing.

I always clean out the standard grease and fill back up with marine grease.
Also give bearing cups a smearing of grease too to stop corrosion of bearing body.

As long as your servicing your bike every couple months, you can clean off any dirt build up.

As per Nw i have tried this a few times one out the packet bearing and one greased bearing into front hub, tried two hubs at the same time and fitted greased bearings on different sides of each hub, in both hubs the greased bearing was still perfect after the standard one had died!
I also give bearings a very light coating of grease on installation
to prevent corrosion and keep potential creaks away.

The fitting instructions for the old hope headsets (pre 07) said “Liberally apply a good quality waterproof grease to all bearing and sealing surfaces”

Oh for the days of grease nipples….

I am with Northwind here.

Always interested to hear different approaches and about different bearings, sadly studied bearings when younger.

We are regularly changing original bearings for us and others, most bearings we pull out fitted originally are corroded on the outside and dried out/rough on the inside.

When re-fitting we always now lift a seal carefully and re-pack the bearings and smear a little grease over the whole bearing before it goes back in.

Only a very few of those we have done need doing again, for most it appears to be doubling/tripling the life.

Our experience is some never need touching, we have never changed a Chris King. But some, bottom headset on Iron Horse Sundays / rear small ones on Stumpjumpers need to be done far too often.

+1 for grease nipples

I always remove seals & degrease bearings, clean & repack with quality grease before installation.

This applies to bikes at home, or oil rigs/ships when at work… 😉

Pack solid with water proof grease until it oozes out of every where , then rub off the excess, 😀 my bike has at least an extra pound of grease 😀

It’s common to grease externally, on the seal, especially with something thick.. they do it in marine applications a lot..

in my workshop I always pack the headset cups with waterproof grease when installing a new sealed bearing headset, or re-installing a sealed bearing headset

once assembled, excess grease will be forced out of the headset, you wipe this off with a clean rag

the grease I have put into the headset during assembly prevents corrosion by acting as an additional “seal” in addition to any headset cup seals and the sealed-bearing seals (2RS)

have been doing this for years, and have never found this grease to attract or hold dirt / water