A word about bearings

[foakes]

Most of us have a decent bearing cleaning system that works for them.

Mine is to pop off one shield and throw it away.

Then a 10 minute soak in the ultrasonic cleaner using lacquer thinner.

Rinse with water.

Dry the bearing, then drop it in a small pimento jar of synthetic oil (I use WRL191S, but any other synthetic oil will work great) for a few minutes while I am assembling the other parts on the reel.

Remove the bearing from the oil and just tamp off the excess oil with a paper towel.

Inject grease into the bearing race.  I use Cal's Purple on fresh water spinners, and either Cal's Tan or Yamaha Marine on salt Conventionals or salt spinners.

Install and I'm done.

Unless really badly worn or severely rusted —- 95% of quality steel bearings can be successfully revived using this method.

Best, Fred

[wussero]

I replaced all the spool bearings in my Penn Torques which are 4 bearings that effect the spools rotation.  The brake adjustment knob on the right, left side plate, two on the spool.  I did this on 4 reels.
Replaced with Acer Racing hybird ceramics.

Damn things can really cast now!  I threw a 2 oz jig 50 yards plus, and hit my splice with my 1000 UC Monster, and my Penn Torque 25N  IF u try casting any harder, u gonna backlash more!

[jurelometer]

I replaced all the spool bearings in my Penn Torques which are 4 bearings that effect the spools rotation.  The brake adjustment knob on the right, left side plate, two on the spool.  I did this on 4 reels.
Replaced with Acer Racing hybird ceramics.

Damn things can really cast now!  I threw a 2 oz jig 50 yards plus, and hit my splice with my 1000 UC Monstere, and my Penn Torque 25N  IF u try casting any harder, u gonna backlash more!

Good that you are happy with your results.  But a couple points for other folk considering this:

1.  The Torque star drags have a floating spool, which means that the spool turns on a stationary shaft when casting, so only the two spool bearings should be able to affect casting performance.

2.  Lubricants will greatly affect casting performance. Sometimes the performance change people see when replacing bearings is more due to the change in lubricants than the type of bearings.  Different types or amounts of lubricants and the condition of lubricant is usually inevitable unless you are pretty deliberate about making an accurate comparison with bearings that have been completely cleaned and lubricated identically.

3. Hybrid bearings will need to be well lubricated to protect the stainless races from corrosion if fishing in saltwater.  The ceramic balls will help prevent the bearing from seizing up entirely, but the races will still get pitted, robbing performance.

-J

[oc1]

In a metal bearing isn't it usually the race that wears and gets grooves in it rather than the balls?  If so, hybrid bearing makes no sense and full ceramic would be the way to go

[jurelometer]

In a metal bearing isn't it usually the race that wears and gets grooves in it rather than the balls?  If so, hybrid bearing makes no sense and full ceramic would be the way to go

Metal on metal rubbing at high speed causes friction welding, which from what I have read is a cause of wear on the balls and races. Ceramic balls eliminates this issue. 

No idea if it is just the races that are wearing on all-metal bearings or if it is just harder to see wear on the balls.

Agree that full ceramic will give you more of the benefits of ceramic bearings. And more of the disadvantages.

-J

[oldmanjoe]

Well it is pretty impressive on how the balls are made for the bearings .   Of the failures that I have seen over the years the ball starts the process .
https://www.lily-bearing.com/resources/blog/how-are-ball-bearing-made/

Another on failure .
https://www.bdsbearing.com/blog/bearing-failures

[boon]

I would speculate that close to 100% of ball bearing failures in fishing reels are due to one of three things: corrosion primarily due to salt ingress, other contamination leading to compromised lubrication, and axial deformation due to excessive sideways loading of radial bearings. The bearings will be generally be running somewhere around 1% and maybe 0.1% of their rated RPM; I'd be surprised if bearing wear purely from normal use would be an issue for the vast majority of reels.

[tincanary]

My bearing supply was re-upped yesterday.  The 10 packs I already had on hand, the 20 packs are what came in yesterday.



These do come pre-greased, so for spool bearings I cleaned them with Brakleen, hit with TSI, and blew out the excess with compressed air.  These are the 1150Y04 that were put into some Ambassadeur 2500Cs.





Grand total was $173.59 after shipping for 80 bearings, or about $2.17 per bearing.  NMB bearings run about $5 to $7 each bought domestically, and price breaks aren't available unless buying 100 or more at a time.  Even then, they still run ~$4 each.

[ssrmr2]

tincanary,

thank you for this information, piecing my order together for nmb bearings.

[foakes]

Thanks, TC!

Best, Fred

[ssrmr2]

anyone else from california having an issue procuring bearings from japan??? I am receiving a u able to ship due to material...

anyone willing to split an order?

[ssrmr2]

I would like to add as it's not as straight forward as ebay is.

I eventually found a supplier that would ship to usa, by searching "nmb" instead of the bearing part number. this opened up the sellers list that shipped to usa.

be careful to locate the fields that the seller is requesting for example, I bought a 10 pack of bearings and was required to specify which bearings.  this was not as clear, and maybe this is due to the translator. I needed up reaching out to buyee support and was able to get my order going.

I hope to recieve here in the next few weeks and i'll reply back when bearings arrive.

thanks again tincanary

steve

[ssrmr2]

update,

I received bearings today. took 14 days exact.

I will be ordering more this way to cover all my reels and some friends.

as stated in my previous post I was not able to locate the options area per auction. however I did write buyee support and they took care of it for me. quickly.

as tincarary stated you can shop and keep things at the warehouse for 30 days and then ship all at once. japanese mail tracking number worked and was able to follow the package from japan to my door.

off to remove shields are clean bearings. i'll loop back when these NMB bearings start to act up.