Pro IIs – play in rear and neither wheel smooth – have I skimped on my bearings?

Changed both wheels’ bearings recently (including all freehub ones too) and all went well but four months in, lots of side-to-side play in rear wheel and both wheels roll but don’t feel or sound smooth.

I spent around £30 on the bearings from a local bearing supplier (the sort trades use for agricultural/mechanics/engineering tools and equipment).

Have I likely bought inferior bearings and would buying bearings from Hope eliminate these problems, or is it something more serious do you think?

I’ve just done the same job on my Hope front and rear hubs, but left the freehub alone. Bearings wise were they stainless steel ones you fitted?

Did you use the proper drifts from hope to install the new bearings?

I suspect your installed bearings are goosed by the sound of your post.

Sounds like the bearings have failed. I use expensive high quality ones. some folk would say you should remove the seals and pack with grease befoer fittting but I prefer to leave them intact.

I agree with you TJ. You can actually cause bearings to fail by over packing them with grease as they get too hot. more often than not new bearings failing early is due to damage when installing.

Not sure if stainless, I suspect not. I did use all the proper Hope tools to remove/install, so it sounds like the bearings were non-stainless and have failed. Submersion on the Dyfi yesterday didn’t help, but oh so worth it 🙂

Can anyone recommend the best value bearings for lasting at least a year?

There are loads of factors that cause bearings to fail prematurely, saying that quality bearings are harder to damage when installing them and will last longer.

Most common causes of bearings failing, poor quality so they burn out very quickly, internal rusting and also not installing them properly.

As for packing the bearings with grease making them over heat or ware out more quickly, not in a mountain bike bearing and it’s the best way to ensure the bearings don’t suffer from rusting.

At high rotational speed to much grease will ware the bearings out but not at between 20 and say 50 mph.

Why not see if the bearings have any marking or names on them, or post up some pictures of the seals / bearings. Pop the seals of and have a look inside.

But chances are they are simply cheap bearings, my mate has his front pro 2 round last week, bearings had been in the wheel for 2.5 years and had a little bit of play in them.

The bearings in my bulb hubs are about 18 months old and still work fine.

im the same situation as you, there seems to be a bit of play in my rear hub, i may try a bit of grease first

I got mine from LBS for £5 each the stainless ones have (RS) after the number.. I think your right drowning them at Dyfi might of finished them off mate.

grease wont fix them if they are already showing play.

think the idea is grease at the time of install…

Best bearings I ever used in a hope hub were abec 5 grade from enduro bearings. Only did them in sizes from the front. Would love to kit them all out with these.

RS signifies rubber seals, not stainless construction. I think the stainless ones start with an S.

£40 to do both wheels with genuine Hope bearings – think I’ll invest in those.

Hope use INA bearings so they are a very good quality replacement, INA / FAG and SKF are in my opinion 2 of the best bearings manufacturers in the world, in terms of quality and durability.

I use the same bearings as the INA’s that hope use in my frames and hubs, the only difference is I remove the seals remove the old grease and then fill them with a water proof bearing specific grease.

That said you are far better off buying the INA bearings hope sell, than buying cheapo bearings and changing them all the time, most of the riders on STW have already come to this conclusion.

It’s just down to trial and error really!

Be aware that Stainless steel is softer than steel, as such a stainless bearing won’t rust but the races won’t last as long.

If the bearings have been installed correctly with the correct tools my money would go on crap quality bearings.

You want something that has 2RS in it’s code which means it has rubber seals both sides, it’s surprising how many you can buy which aren’t sealed both sides.

It depends on the quality of the stainless steel as well, the top end stainless bearings like SKF are quite tough, but the cheaper bearings are almost useless they won’t rust but will ware out very quickly.

That said stainless is softer than chromium.

I would just run Top end bearings and weather proof them, or just run them as is, if you can’t remove the seals without damaging them then just run them as they are!

Trailrider Jim – Member

£40 to do both wheels with genuine Hope bearings – think I’ll invest in those.
How much? The Hope genuine bearings are less than £6 each on Wiggle. You need 4 in total, 2 of each, so around £23 by my reckoning

rear pro 2’s have 5 bearings and the fronts run 2 so 7x £6 = £42

Just replaced the free hub bearings with SKF ones from a local bearing company, £7.50 each (which may or may not be cheap) should have got the other 2 at the same time but I forgot the code :-/ so going in tomorrow for them.

The last lot I had, have lasted just over 18 months in the rear and the fronts are still going, didn’t bother adding extra grease, just fitted and rode.

Not bad for all weather riding, mainly in and around The Peak

Slight highjack, but where did you get the drifts? I’ve got a bulb set but our bikes are also running pro 2 and pro 2 EVO hubs.

kaesae – Member

rear pro 2’s have 5 bearings and the fronts run 2 so 7x £6 = £42

True but not relevant. The front and rear hubs have 2 axle bearings each. The freehub on the rear has an additional 3 bearings but these have no impact at all on play of the wheel within the frame. Even the Hope website does not recommend changing the freehub bearings at the same time as the main bearings, unless they are obviously shot

So its still £23 to replace the WHEEL bearings

Trailrider Jim – Member

£40 to do both wheels with genuine Hope bearings – think I’ll invest in those.

You can actually cause bearings to fail by over packing them with grease as they get too hot.

LOL…you must ride fast…

Onzadog

Pro 2 drift set available here, well that is where I got mine any way.

http://www.ukbikestore.co.uk/product/38/httpro2/hope-pro-2-hub-tool-kit-complete.html

Cheers.

@cynical… if you can catch me mate ha-ha then yes very fast mate 🙂

I once had it on very good authority that once you removed the seal on a new sealed cartridge type bearing it was ****.Also that just because it has INA or SKF or NSK etched on it don’t assume its real.