sokanxx Posted May 8, 2006 Share Posted May 8, 2006 I got a new job and will be starting May 22. The good thing about this new job is that it is 50 miles from my house so I will put 100 miles a day on the XX. But also for this reason I need to make sure everything is ready to handle all the miles I wil start to put on the bike. My front wheel makes a very very slight grinding sound when i have it in neutral and I am coasting at speeds under 20mph. I dont know if its the wheel bearing or not. how many miles can i expect from the wheel bearings? I've got about 15,000 miles on my 97' XX. My new job is at Dodge City Harley-Davidson Honda, we also sell Yamaha, Kawasaki, and KTM needless to say I'm pretty excited to be surrounded by shiney new cycles everyday. I cant see me standing around in em for 9 hours a day with out getting attached to one. I'm already schemeing about a black ZX14 to share the miles with the XX. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bonox Posted May 9, 2006 Share Posted May 9, 2006 too complicated a question. If you don't clean the wheel bearing areas with high pressure water, don't hit too many potholes and avoid wheelies, then yo ucould hapilly get more than 200,000miles out of them, just like a car. Or, you could ride it like you stole it and get anywhere between 20,000 and 500,000miles. Or, you could ride it like a granny and they'll give up at 5,000miles. Comes down to how you treat them and whether or not you get one from the long life side of the bell curve. As a rough stab though, i'd be surprised if you got less than a hundred thou out of them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Obby Posted May 9, 2006 Share Posted May 9, 2006 My right front wore out in 35k. The rear are still holding up fine. If you're really concerned about you're front, pull the wheel and give it a turn with your fingers. They should roll fairly easy. When mine when out completely, the fron wheel gave a real hard shuttering and squeeling. Hope that helps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete in PA Posted May 9, 2006 Share Posted May 9, 2006 All I can say is I'm at 68k miles still all factory bearings. 85 V65 Sabre 107k, same bearings. Now onto the more bizzare part of your post. A Harley...anything Japanesse dealer? Is it just me? I've never seen one. Harley/Buell, yes. Hon/Yam/Kaw/Suz dealers, sure. I've been around, I'm a bike dealer hound too. I will go check out every bikeshop I see. Especially now with Harley building these HUGE dealerships everywhere. No Hondas in there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bartonmd Posted May 9, 2006 Share Posted May 9, 2006 All I can say is I'm at 68k miles still all factory bearings. 85 V65 Sabre 107k, same bearings. Now onto the more bizzare part of your post. A Harley...anything Japanesse dealer? Is it just me? I've never seen one. Harley/Buell, yes. Hon/Yam/Kaw/Suz dealers, sure. I've been around, I'm a bike dealer hound too. I will go check out every bikeshop I see. Especially now with Harley building these HUGE dealerships everywhere. No Hondas in there. There's a Harley-Honda dealer on the north side of Indy... It's pretty common from what I hear, because of the early 80's when Harley was VERY close to going out of business, and dealerships were having a HARD time staying in business, they picked up some other lines to stay afloat... Some of them still have them... Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sokanxx Posted May 9, 2006 Author Share Posted May 9, 2006 I'm getting my new tires put on here in a month after my dunlops are fully worn out, and I will check the wheel bearings then. The dealership sells just about all jap bikes but Suzuki. We also sell Buells and harleys. A few of the guys out in the shop ride Buells, but I'm not sure i have ever actually seen one on the showroom floor in the last two years. I think Erik Buell has some great ideas but Harley engines are what is holding him back. The dealership sells the hell out of harley tshirts seems like every good ol boy wants a Harley Davidson tshirt from Dodge City. Out here in south west kansas Harleys and cruisers are the big sellers. No twistys to have big fun on a super sport, so the cruisers provide what these guys are looking for. The roads out here are long and striaght. I suppose if there were anymore twistys in south west kansas I would have gotten an RC51 instead of the XX but the XX owns the straights and that seems to be all there is out here. This is a bit off topic but its not worth starting a new thread for. I was going to shimm the rear last night. I pulled the tank and all that stuff only to find it was already shimmed!! I was then tempted to pull them out and ride a little just to feel the difference, but figured there was no real benifit in that so I put it all back together and went for a nice long evening ride. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R1000 Posted June 19, 2007 Share Posted June 19, 2007 I replaced the front wheel bearings today at 70 000 km as a preventive action. They inner section of the bearings didn't turn easy by finger force. Once out they rotated freely. The turn resistance they gave in the wheel was due to an inner tube that put some force (intentionally) on the bearings inner section. Well, once they where out I put in the new ones of course. I also took the opportunity to balance the complete front wheel when it was removed. The balancer on http://www.marcparnes.com/ is an impressing device. Only a very few grams unbalance will make the wheel turn very slowly, like the speed on a analog watch second pointer. The wheel was off balance about 7 grams, which have not been noticed at driving. Now it is balanced within about 2 grams or so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canadian Bird Posted June 26, 2007 Share Posted June 26, 2007 At 105,000 kms I'm replacing wheel bearing which I bought of Jaws. I did the stearing head bearings at 102,000 kms. I've never noticed anything but after reading sereral threads I thought it was time, maybe even late. This spring I rebuilt the suspension; Pense remote adj rear and front springs and pre-load adj's from Jaws. I'm replacing the RR from John, still on the original. I'm replacing the cct. I've installed Goodridge steel lines, plus clutch line. New battery. New Avon Storms. Shrooms. Hid low beam, 100 W high beam. I feel I now have the Bird Honda should have built. I can live with the power, don't need more. This summer I will add the final two "farkles" a Bell RX65 PRO, and a Zumo 550. Now I have the perfect sport touring/sport bike for me. And it only cost me a fortune and took 5 years. Now I'm buying a scooter for my wife; 50cc, she won't need a motorcycle licence. I'm planning on "tarting" it up and useing it to commute the 10 kms from home to work. No bridges, free-ways; speed, 50-70kmp. I don't want to ride the Bird that short distance at that speed. I'm into my scooter faze. Don't you dare , Fing boo me off the stage. I plan on teaching my wife how to ride. For her it's the best 1st stage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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