Taken apart a Mavic Crossmax ST 29er freehub and pushed out two of these 6803RS bearings, on the side that faces out they have a shiny metal seal and not the usual rubber lipped black metal one that the other side has.

When I get the new ones from from ebay (Kaese on here) should I whip out one rubber and replace with the metal?

Many thanks for any help.

keeps the grease in and less friction than a rubber covered seal would be my guess.

More common on automotive bearings. Used to seem them in motorbike wheels, so no problem but probably not worth swapping to new bearings

The 2RS ones have 2 rubber seals. The ones that don’t have RS on the en of the code have two metal seals.

GB

It could be that the rubber has worn off leaving the metal shield. Rubber seals are rarely all rubber, that metal surface is very shiny as if it has subjected to a lot rubbing.

The first three replies are correct. The forth one is not.

SKF seals

Explain plain why the fourth is incorrect.

Because its a daft suggestion. If the rubber had worn off the metal wouldn’t look like that, and it wouldn’t stay in place, and bearings with metal deals aren’t that uncommon.

njee20 I know all what you are saying but the face of that metal shield looks all distorted, it may well be a metal shield but it has what appears to be surface wear