How Much Grease?

[Chris Ross]

Anyone pack their own bearings? How much grease do you put in your angular contact ball bearings? Some numbers I have seen are 20-30% of the void area. I have a calculation for the void area, but wanted to see what others are doing.

[Allen Schutte]

In A&P school we were taught to pack bearings using two different methods and neither involved a quantity of grease. Roller bearings (i.e.Timken) can be packed by hand (what a mess!!!) by working it into the bearing pushing it in with the palm of the hand. Using a bearing packing tool we would push grease in until dirty grease was all pushed out, yes, even after thorough cleaning with solvent there is still dirty grease in there. In fact, I don't think you can put too much grease in.

[Chris Ross]

Roller bearings are different than high speed ball bearings. Roller bearings are supposed to be packed full since they typically run at much lower speeds and much higher loads.