H: Hubs, Wheels and Tyres Wheel bearings.

[Chris Launders]

An innocent question for you, I know the taper roller wheel bearings are the original fitment but what with the shimming up, greasing etc is there any real benefit these days in keeping them when everyone else in the world uses sealed ball races with no problems. Assembly would certainly be far simpler and cleaner.
Chris.

 

[Peter Holmes]

Shim them, grease them, fit Nilos rings, check again when you think your brake shoes might need looking at, I like taper roller bearings.

 

[davidd]

Chris,

I think the answer is no. The taper roller bearings at the time were a design for sidecar work. There is no better bearing to take side loads. With so little sidecar work done now, sealed roller bearings and Hybrid ceramic bearings are far superior. Greg Brillus used them successfully on his twin racer in 2014 and I had a number of billet hubs designed for metric sealed bearings so that I could use the low rolling resistance Hybrid bearings.

The use of grease in racing wheels has always been a problem because the heat can cause grease vapor to degrade the linings.

I have not installed them on a racer yet as I had planned to use them on a Bonneville bike, but had to change to cast wheels due to a rule change. There is a bit of design work to change to a spacer axle and shims for the brake plate like modern bikes, but it is straight forward. Greg might have something to say!

David

 

[Bill Thomas]

Must admit when I had my 5 spoke alloy wheels made, Mid 70s, For my Special,
I watched the chap press the fixed bearings in, No location or anything, just a spacer in between,
I did worry for a bit !,
Not touched them yet !!, Used on the road and race track for 45 years.

 

[vibrac]

I suppose its an option, especially now I dont have an MOT tester to argue with I used to like explaining why the small play on the rim was acceptable and necessary
However It does seem a lot of hassel to sort a hub out to take roller bearings, taper roller bearings have never given me trouble racing, there is plenty of time to lightly grease with HMP in between events. and certainly for road use I can think of loads more important mods.
But its something to keep in mind if we search for the last % in racing

 

[greg brillus]

Apart from the lesser maintenance, the extra effort is not worth it. The bearings need shims to be made, as you still need to retain the hollow axle. I did it on the first racer because i was running a Suzuki GT 750 front brake and had to swap out the hub bearings to suit the 1/2" front axle for the Girdraulic fork blades, so I did a similar mod to the rear stock 10 bolt Vincent hub to ease the maintenance, like David said about grease potentially migrating to the brake shoes.........For a road bike I would do the same again, but not if I was using standard hubs/brakes.

 

[Chris Launders]

As I said it was just an innocent question, I've never had problems with the taper rollers or migrating grease. It was just early on in the Covid lockdown I was making a disc conversion (ready in case I ever get round to fittting it) and every time you were doing anything there was grease and shims everywhere and the bearings dropping out, then I had to make spacers for one side while working out the other and use the spindle with spacers as I have a plain hollow axle with alloy brake plates. With ball races it would have been a far simpler, cleaner job.

 

[vibrac]

When I rebuilt my trials sidecar for the Comet to do MCC trials and the Skye Rally, I made a stub axel to take a vincent taper roller bearing and thus fit a Vincent hub, (It had a vintage cup and cone). When I took the hub into the wheel builder he said "Ah Vincent 20 or or 19 inch? " , I said No I want 17" when he asked why I said I was building a Vincent chopper. one look at his face I had to put him right. the wheel worked a treat, in fact I am about to fit the sidecar back to my 58 Trophy where it originally came from, after I did MCC Lands end to John O'Groats with Ange years ago

 

[Peter Holmes]

If we were limited to H47 felt seals I might look at sealed bearings, I don't know if the composition of the felt changed for the worse over time, but the last ones I fitted many years ago disintegrated fairly quickly, contaminating the bearing and brake drum, but since I fitted Nilos rings everything works just fine with zero contamination, but of course you need to use the correct high melting point grease, currently I am just putting a set of wheels together using Penrite Wheel Bearing Grease, blue in colour, makes a nice change from Castrol LM Beige!

 

[Bill Thomas]

I like the felts, But think they are too thick, So I cut them in half,
Same with the steering head felts.