Sealed bearings with grease?

[pmccarthy]

I bought new rear wheel bearings. They are sealed units but come with a packet of grease. Seems to me I would do more harm than good pulling the seals and adding grease. I would not leave seals out on the inner (diff) side either. because of future contamination from fine metal in the diff oil. Any suggestions?

[onetrack]

The grease has possibly been included accidentally, as the same boxes may also contain other bearing styles that were only sealed on one side, and needed to be packed with grease before installation.

 

There are a multitude of sealed bearing seal types, and they're all individually designed for specific operating conditions. They range from a simple steel shield protection, to steel shield with rubber lip, to fully rubberised seals.

 

Don't ever try to remove a seal from a sealed bearing, you'll almost certainly damage the seal, either in removal or in the replacement attempt. The seals are installed at the factory by machines that usually crimp the seals into position.

 

Fit the sealed bearings without further modification and keep the grease sachet for other lube purposes.

 

Edited August 16, 2023 by onetrack

[old man emu]

Perhaps the grease is used to help fitting a bearing into a round hole. But probably not.

[facthunter]

It's probably included with all of them which could cause some confusion. Certainly don't remove the seals. I leave them on in motorcycle gearboxes as gearboxes are crash engagement and can cause chips of metal . Use a magnetic drain Plug too.  Nev