Idler bearings

[Phazer2Viper]

Anyone have good luck buying idler bearings anywhere. Im looking at replacing mine with some new ones not from the dealership but I’m nervous as to how long they would hold up.

 

[Teamblue4]

OEM for me.

 

[Smokum]

USA bearing and belts is the website I buy from. Have for 6 or 7 years now. They have a couple quality level choices and I always buy the best ones, but still way cheaper than anywhere else I have seen. I've had good luck with them.

 

[cannondale27]

The stock bearings in our wheels are actually real good. I believe they are either NTN or NTK. Lost track but yearly cleaning and grease they last forever. Over 9000 on my stock set then I got lazy and decided to just change them. Dealer only had China blue seals in a tube. Cheap. Thought they would make a season. Nope. 3 rides. Less than 1000mi I lost 2! Replaced with a mix of these NTN’s and FAG bearings. Both made the whole season easily. The FAG bearings stayed tighter than the NTN. Highly recommend the best bearings possible in the wheels.

 

[maim]

x2 on what cannondale said.

i mainly use ntn as that is what royal sells and hard to beat the price/convinence. at 12000 mi on my sled and still have origional bearings in quite a few of the wheels. thge ones i have replaced on older sleds have lasted just as long as the factory ones have with annual packing.

 

[Carla 123]

Those bearings held in with circlips ? I'm thinking on just replacing mine after this upcoming season

 

[yamagone]

How did the tri-hub bearings look/feel after a season for those who have the replaceable ones? Too many tri-hub horror stories.

 

[cannondale27]

Those bearings held in with circlips ? I'm thinking on just replacing mine after this upcoming season

Yes

 

[Turtle]

How did the tri-hub bearings look/feel after a season for those who have the replaceable ones? Too many tri-hub horror stories.

I'm currently going through my skid as I write this. My sled has 8000 miles on it and all the idler wheel bearings are getting replaced as most are shot and a few have the seals gone. Just as @cannondale27 said - the stock bearings are very good. They lasted me this long and I'm surprised they held up as well as they did. I don't do any maintenance to them as some others do (like removing seals and regreasing). My sled is a 2015, so the stock tribub didn't have a replaceable bearing. So I swapped out the trihub for the 2016 version after two seasons with the sled. So my trihub with replaceable bearings now has about 4000 miles on it and they are in great shape! I should also mention that I do not run a 4th wheel kit.

 

[Mills]

Yamagone -- look for the write-up I did on making your tri-hub bearings serviceable. It may take a full day and a few "hydraulic-sandwiches" but it is fairly easy to do so that you can clean and repack them annually. My tri-hub bearings needed attention after only about 1,800 miles the rest got cleaned and repacked since I had the skid out. One thing I noticed in all the factory skid bearings is that they had a plastic ball bearing spacer/retainer in them. All my Nytro and all other pre-yamacat Yamaha's had a metal ball bearing spacer/retainer in them. I think this is one reason the Viper skid bearings are a little more sensitive to grit, grime and grease condition than we are all used to. Clean and grease them annually and you should not have a problem.

 

[cannondale27]

Yamagone -- look for the write-up I did on making your tri-hub bearings serviceable. It may take a full day and a few "hydraulic-sandwiches" but it is fairly easy to do so that you can clean and repack them annually. My tri-hub bearings needed attention after only about 1,800 miles the rest got cleaned and repacked since I had the skid out. One thing I noticed in all the factory skid bearings is that they had a plastic ball bearing spacer/retainer in them. All my Nytro and all other pre-yamacat Yamaha's had a metal ball bearing spacer/retainer in them. I think this is one reason the Viper skid bearings are a little more sensitive to grit, grime and grease condition than we are all used to. Clean and grease them annually and you should not have a problem.

Plastic cages also don’t rust like a metal will.

 

[yamagone]

Yamagone -- look for the write-up I did on making your tri-hub bearings serviceable. It may take a full day and a few "hydraulic-sandwiches" but it is fairly easy to do so that you can clean and repack them annually. My tri-hub bearings needed attention after only about 1,800 miles the rest got cleaned and repacked since I had the skid out. One thing I noticed in all the factory skid bearings is that they had a plastic ball bearing spacer/retainer in them. All my Nytro and all other pre-yamacat Yamaha's had a metal ball bearing spacer/retainer in them. I think this is one reason the Viper skid bearings are a little more sensitive to grit, grime and grease condition than we are all used to. Clean and grease them annually and you should not have a problem.

Thanks for the tip. I'm on the fence on whether to go with a JT kit or not and eliminate it altogether.

 

[RTX]

I know this is gonna sound awful, but i pull my skid at the end of every season because i always seem to have something broken. With that said. I buy the cheapest bearing i can find on ebay and swap them all out at the same time. I do everything except the top idlers that are pressed on.
I do those every other year and use oem bearings. I have been doing this for about 10 years and never had a failure.
A pack of 12 bearings cost me about 15 bucks shipped.

 

[RTX]

Yamagone -- look for the write-up I did on making your tri-hub bearings serviceable. It may take a full day and a few "hydraulic-sandwiches" but it is fairly easy to do so that you can clean and repack them annually

i did this exact thing to my tri hub the end of the first season and it has about 7000 miles on it with no issues

 

[DVW]

I inspect my skid frame bearings yearly and repack them every 5000 miles. During the last 5 years those events have occurred at the same time. The two bearings in the Tri-hub seem to hold up well except for the early years when there was quality issues. At the 20,000 mile mark instead of repacking I replaced all the skid frame bearings because I found one cracked seal. I try to buy a bearing with a name that I recognize. New replacement bearings were repacked with 100% fill. The new bearings felt a little tighter but not much. My wife’s machine roles up less than 500 miles per year. Her machine might only go a half dozen years before I feel a dry or crotchety bearing when I spin the wheels. If I find one dry or crotchety bearing I repack them all. A dry bearing is hard to perceive so I compare how it feels with a new wheel and bearing assembly. You will not have to worry if you pass inspection early season. Hope this helps.