Alan's miracle bearing packer

[johndtuttle]

Question,

gonna do my first test of Alan's Miracle Bearing Packer in a few days and wonder if anyone has experience using it on *sealed* not shielded bearings?

Work good? Good idea? No damage to seals??

Thanks for all replies.

John

[Bryan Young]

Hi John, if you are referring to those bearing with those synthetic rubber shields, it's best to pry them out on one side, pack the bearing then re-insert the seal.  I tried with the shields left in with varing results.  Bryan

[johndtuttle]

Hi John, if you are referring to those bearing with those synthetic rubber shields, it's best to pry them out on one side, pack the bearing then re-insert the seal.  I tried with the shields left in with varing results.  Bryan

Thanks for that! 

[paal]

John, I have the bearing packers, and been using it both on conventials and spinners. The grease I have tested so far (Yamaha, and Shipmate, both marine greases) have made the reels a bit stiff to crank. On single disc leverdrags, it even makes the binding more noticeable (compared to stock lubrication).

On my reels that use bearings with shields that can go in and out, I have experimented with other greases (not available in cartridges for grease guns). My favorite is the grease below. Says space age, so it must be good, right? I even used it in a line roller bearing of a 560 Slammer, that's how light and 'free running' it is. Don't know about corrosion protection, time will tell I guess.

On leverdrags, it seems to also have positive affect on binding. Why the binding gets worse with yamaha grease, and better with this one I really don't know. Must be the Space Age stuff they put in, I guess

[johndtuttle]

Thx for that Paal.

Free spinning is very important, especially in spinning reels , so I won't go wild with it. Some just have particularly needy bearings (typically the top pinion bearing is very exposed to salt) that I want to be sure to protect. With most I apply corrosion-x from the outside to seep past the shields.

Thanks, we'll see how it goes!

best

[paal]

Yes, the 'outer' pinion bearing, handle side main gear bearing and line roller are the ones I've been packing. Not the ones that are inside the reel. Line roller bearing only on the heavier spinners, doesn't work very well on the ultra light stuff

For bearings where I had to use the packer along with regular (stiff) marine grease, I could make the bearings much more free spinning by adding a couple of drops of reel X on the outside of the shield afterwards, and let it work its way into the bearing by rotating it. My theory about this was that the reel X would seep into the very small voids that are being created around the balls and cage, when they are rotating inside this stiff mass of grease. So you would have the balls swim in reelX, and then all this nice marine grease everywhere else inside the bearing, not allowing any water to enter. In theory at least

I don't have a lot of long term test data on this, only a set of very expensive EZO bearings that failed on me not very long after receiving this treatment. It wasn't corrosion, they just got rough with use. It was a lever drag reel, so I can't rule out that someone got eager with the preset & lever.