Bearing heat with rf900 wheel swap

[XCopy]

Quite a few miles ago I swapped my stock 3.5" rear wheel off of my '96 kat with one off of a '96 rf900 in order to fit a wider tire. I am now riding with a 170/60 and absolutely love it. No longer am I getting to the edge of the tire every time I hit a curve, like I was doing with the stock 140.

I have ran into a problem though with heat coming from my rear axle/bearing assembly. The only reason this bothers me is that over time on long trips, I am going to get increased bearing wear and potentially failure.

When I did the wheel swap, I put on stock kat bearings and made up a new spacer for the center of the wheel. Everything lines up great and spins with almost no resistance.

Does anyone know what I could do to eliminate whatever is causing this heat?

Thanks

[XCopy]

any ideas?

[meatball]

Originally Posted by XCopy

any ideas?

maby its the crush drive bearing spacer that is too short , and the bearings would have to much stress,
( side load ) had this problem with my wheel swap .

make sure you have the proper spacer installed.. 8)

[The CyberPoet]

I don't know the cause specifically (lateral loading?), but I would suggest upgrading to ALL BALLS brand replacement wheel bearings and using a high-temp marine-application wheel bearing grease (the type used on boat trailers that get lowered into salt water to drop boats) in the bearings. While this may not eliminate your heat issue, it will give you both sturdier bearings and make the grease far less likely to migrate away from the bearings as it heats up (and keep it from wanting to wash away in rain).

As for the heat issue, look at your alignments closely, and especially your clearances with the rear axle nut set to the prescribed 42 lb-ft of torque -- if you can shim even a single bit of paper between the spacer and the bearing, something isn't the right size there.

Cheers,
=-= The CyberPoet

[md86]

If heat's building up , SOMETHINGS gotta be not right with your setup . And I would think since heat is caused by friction , maybe a closer look at the parts might give SOME clue as to what's causing it ..... I'm just sayin . If it were ME , I'd look for wear patterns on the axle and spacers and all that crap . But then , if you were able to pull off that swap in the FIRST place , maybe it just sounds like I'm being condescending and doubting your mechanical prowess , or something (which I'm not , I swear) .

[XCopy]

I think I figured it, I have checked all of the potential places for gaps and there are not any. I did notice an increase in the heat during the day, so my conclusion is that a combination of the heat off of the engine and being in direct sunlight on a black swingarm, all of that heat is being absorbed.

Guess its better to be safe then a smear.

Thanks for the replies.

[HS2020]

You do know that you should have used all katana parts on the rear wheel including the crush drive spacers? The spacer you made up may not be dead on as far as the tolerance goes. Save yourself the heartache and just buy the right one and put it in. They are only about $12 or so from Ron Ayers or your local dealer.

[XCopy]

Everything on the back of the bike is kat except for the wheel. The only thing that I had to change was the length of the spacer between the caliper support and the wheel bearing, as well as adding a 1/8th inch washer in front of the spacer in the cush drive to fill in the gap.

Thanks