GS1200 Gearbox Blown Up

[Neil W]

Problem with sealed bearings is that their lubrication has a finite lifespan, fair enough in an application such as wheel bearings where you do not want water, grit etc getting into them and they have a limited life and are very simple to change.

Within a gearbox , where they are a bugger and expensive to change and where it is beneficial for them to be open and receive regular changes of oil and lubrication it makes no sense to fit sealed bearings.

I've pulled apart quite a few bike, car and commercial boxes over the years and none of them so far has been fitted with sealed bearings

 

[ghiribizzo]

Some gears with new bearings...

Customer demanded SKF bearings, no cheap crap! Customer is unaware of the grade of bearings that are needed in there or what it means but SKF are good, y'see...
I think the fact that all the boxes had 'Made in Bulgaria' has caused some mental trauma...

 

[(RIP) Mark H]

Problem with sealed bearings is that their lubrication has a finite lifespan, fair enough in an application such as wheel bearings where you do not want water, grit etc getting into them and they have a limited life and are very simple to change.

Within a gearbox , where they are a bugger and expensive to change and where it is beneficial for them to be open and receive regular changes of oil and lubrication it makes no sense to fit sealed bearings.

I've pulled apart quite a few bike, car and commercial boxes over the years and none of them so far has been fitted with sealed bearings

Well it made sense enough to BMW / Gertag to fit them, I'd like to see evidence of "Finite" lifespan, how longs finite 20k, 50k 100k? any comparisons made between sealed and open lifespan?

Trouble is they don't receive regular oil changes once out of warranty its down to the owners which could be anything from 6k miles to never

You can on rebuild always revert to "open" bearings, if you dont mind a clunkier box

 

[Bendy toy]

You can on rebuild always revert to "open" bearings

Or use sealed bearings with the inner seal removed. However, will enough oil be splashed into the bearings?

With grease sealed bearings we know they have lubrication. AND when bearings fail they get noisy long before any sort of collapse. Also, the gear oil has 2 seals between it and the outside world.