flatpickhippster

Bashing scenarios.....dry, damp, streets, lawns, ditches, gravel, dirt, asphalt.....ripping hard, but not abusing the nitro buggy to much.
Buggy is cleaned pretty thoroughly with Nitro Spray Cleaner, dried with a heat gun, then I hit the bearings/dog bones/joints as best I can with some sort of light oil spray lube or Bananna lube or something before storage.

Questions:

How many tanks before I should remove bearings from housings on buggy and do a thorough cleaning?.......wheel bearings?.....diff bearings?

What should I lube thgem up with after cleaning for max protection and longest time between cleanings?

Thanks.

rccheech

All you can reall do is hit them with a shot of wd40 or similar substance. You can try and pop the seals off and clean them, but its tough to do, usually if thier rough just replace them.

aspeed

An air hose works good.  Oil attracts dirt, so if you use it, it will need to be cleaned more often.

flatpickhippster

Thanks....what I'm reading/hearing is.....since bearings are sealed, fairly inexpensive and unless I'm gonna go thru the PITA of removing seals & lubing....I'd be better off just blow'em out with an air hose, hitting with a WD40 type of light oil spray and replace when they show any signs of crunchy-ness/wear...

[8D]

Zonked

My Feedback: (6)

Exactly. I use fast eddie bearings, quality bearings and free shipping over 20.00.

http://www.fasteddybearings.com/

Anthoop

Well there has to be someone to disagree, so here I go....
If I have got enough dirt around the bearings to cause me to worry, then I flip the sheilds off- bath/brush in degreaser- dry- relube- refit sheilds.....and yes I do more maintenance than driving, I like it.
Sheilds are easy to remove with a scalpel around the inner or outer edge and try to flip it off....when removed give it a blast of air and a thorough wiping...and check it is still flat.
I bath the bearing in degreaser but there are plenty of other options like brake cleaner or specific bearing sprays....or anything that will wash out the existing grease without leaving anything behind (that we do not want).
For lube, I use bearing grease....again there are many options but for bashing around, some auto type grease is fine.

I would not be tyring to wash bearings through whilst the shields are on as you have more chance of pushing dirt in and also washing the grease out....either leave it alone or do it properly.....cheap bearings are cheap.
If a bearing feels rough then inevitably it is already too late....but a good clean and some real thick treacle will make it smooth again, just a bit slow.

JohnP2

I'll service wheel bearings about every10 tanks. I just spray them down with a llittle contact cleaner to get initial crap off, pop off the shields, spray the insides good, and then use some Hudy bearing oil (just a little) and they come out like new! With that said, I'll only clean them once...because if you pop off the shields too often (at least in my experience) they wear. I'll also get fairly inexpensive wheel bearings since they are replaced every20 tanks or so.

Clutch bearings I just replace about every 10 tanks or so...once again I'll go with inexpensive ones. Diff bearings I'll replace when I service the diffs (maybe every 3/4 gallon), butpreferhigher-end ones since they don't get replaced too often.

One note about removing rubber shields.I recommendan X-ACTO knife (hobby knife) likethe pic belowto save you a lot of frustration. ;-)