Pack the Wheel Bearings Failure

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dibbons

dibbons

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Another episode today of "One Step Forward, Two Steps Back"

I have been looking forward to premiering my Lisle 34550 wheel bearing packer for quite some time. Found an almost full can of stringy heavy duty grease and filled the Lisle about half full. Following directions to the letter, but no grease would penetrate the roller bearings. The grease was old but in a sealed metal can.

Don't know what went wrong except maybe the grease viscosity overpowered the 180 pounds of body weight effort I put into the down force. Going to buy some grease that is a little less viscous tomorrow. I wiped off the roller bearing and dumped it into some gasoline and the gasoline stayed clean which tells me bearing still good and dry.

I had to spend quite a time cleaning out the grease I packed into the Lisle before the next attempt.

no grease.JPG
 
dibbons said:
Another episode today of "One Step Forward, Two Steps Back"

I have been looking forward to premiering my Lisle 34550 wheel bearing packer for quite some time. Found an almost full can of stringy heavy duty grease and filled the Lisle about half full. Following directions to the letter, but no grease would penetrate the roller bearings. The grease was old but in a sealed metal can.

Don't know what went wrong except maybe the grease viscosity overpowered the 180 pounds of body weight effort I put into the down force. Going to buy some grease that is a little less viscous tomorrow. I wiped off the roller bearing and dumped it into some gasoline and the gasoline stayed clean which tells me bearing still good and dry.

I had to spend quite a time cleaning out the grease I packed into the Lisle before the next attempt.

View attachment 1715725934
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Those packers work good but you can't use grease that is too solid or stringy.
 
I have used a double cone type with a zerk fitting

It worked well.
 
Maybe warm it up? I used to have a packer that was a little tool, all metal, with two cone shaped "cups" you stick the bearing in and screw the one loose cup down and then it had a grease fitting on one end. Frankly I rarely used the thing.
 
Wheel bearing grease is not fibrous. That's not wheel bearing grease, I don't care what that OLD can says and frankly I cannot believe you used that when good, fresh wheel bearing grease is so cheap and available. Those packers do work good, but IMO they are magnets for dust dirt and grit and unless you keep them in a big ziplock bag, which is a pain in the ***, they WILL get contaminated. See post #2. @dadsbee has it right. That's how I've done it over FORTY YEARS and never had a problem. It's very hands on and you KNOW when the bearing is full. Old school at its finest.

Get some new grease. I mean seriously.
 
The only place I can think of where factory used that type of grease was inside the box coupling.
 
I have a cone packer that works "OK".

Whacking the grease in with the palm of your hand works 100% of the time.


The cleanup is a wash between the two.

Different but just as bad.

Actually a bit easier and less displaced grease with the hand method, and surface easier to get clean.
 
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I can only think of two places on a Mopar that I would use "Fibrous Grease" one is the torsion bar sockets and the other, the steering column slip joint...
 
adriver said:
I'm more of a red grease McDonald Douglas man.
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So was my dad, he drove his/my dart to Douglas Aircraft in Santa Monica till they merged with McDonald, then he drove to Huntington Beach. He worked there right out of college till they retired him.
 
One nice thing about the Lisle packer is that it has a cover that slides down to protect the grease between uses. It is still messy because you have to dig into the grease and pull the bearing out. I always smear some grease on the outside of the rollers as well. I usually don't use gloves although it would be a neater job if I did.
 
adriver said:
I'm with @dadsbee except I think he is Boeing.
I'm more of a red grease McDonald Douglas man.
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LOL.. I don't do synthetics, so I guess I'm more of a DeHavilland ! I've had that big bucket of green wheel bearing grease for a good 35 years. I never use to wear gloves to do bearings either, but I got smarter with age..
 
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