Planedev:

You can probably salvage the bearings if you're patient. Rubber seal, teflon, or metal? For any of the three, you can use RPM's 'Bearing Blaster' developed years ago to blow old lube and sand out of bearings on the offroad cars:

http://www.rpmrcproducts.com/product...hires/8117.htm

Tower Hobbies: http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXEV92&P=M

I've used it to rejuvenate bearings and maintain ball bearing lifetimes. It can also be used to blow out 'bad lube' or plastic-hostile lube, and then you can run them try or use it to blow in some graphite or something else. I've yet to see if it'll handle the rubber-shielded ones I got off Walawala... before he changed suppliers.

The other way was one I used in my pre-Blaster days, which was soaking my metal-shield ones in varsol. It removed the lube from the bearings to float on the top, and then I re-lube'd with my lube of choice. This won't work for teflon seals, as the sealant on the teflon dissolves, and it'll probably destroy the rubber seals.

If you're REALLY patient, and the bearings are good, you can use a straight pin, and pop the seal rings, and then remove the seals to soak/clean the bearings. I've done this but its not easy, as sometimes you end up with the spring-rings going flying in a form of 'tweezer-pult as the photo-etch and small parts assemblers call it.'