Hub / Bearing Recommendations

jku612

jku612

New member
I'm looking to replace my hub / wheel bearings. Any advice on which brand? Thanks in advance.
 
jku612 said:
I'm looking to replace my hub / wheel bearings. Any advice on which brand? Thanks in advance.
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I had bought a set from Oriely’s, I believe they were Timken. They honored a 1 year warranty with them when would eat a set after a season on the trail.


2015 JKUR AEV JK350
1985 CJ8 Scrambler
 
I've always had good luck with Timken bearings over the years, on many applications. Been a while since I've had to replace any, so assuming nothing has changed with their quality I'd recommend them.

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I had a set of timkens. Lasted a couple of years with 37s. Just replaced with mopars. Stamp on those reveals they’re made by Iljen, a Korean bearing company.


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I tried Timken once and it failed after a busy year to trail use. Since I could not get them local, trying to get warranty coverage was not worth the time nor cost of sending them back for inspection.

I went back to O'Reilly Precision brand - 3yr Warranty.

With 13.50x37 Cooper STT Pros on Machete beadlocks with 3.5BS it tends to break down hubs pretty fast when hitting the trails regularly or about every 1.5 years of daily use.

I've had no issues getting a replacement under warranty :thumb:

The biggest cause of shortening the hub life on my 2010 JKU is the machete beadlock 3.5" backspace, with the chamber pro 4.06BS hubs often lasted beyond their 3 year warranty period.

The hubs also come with 37" long ABS lines :thumb: but take a 5mm allen wrench to check the ABS sensor, I ran into a situation where the ABS sensor was not correct; turns out hubs for foreign market use also use the same part number and had gotten mixed up and sent to USA stores and they do not have the longer ABS wire and the sensor is short and round

The hub worked on my JK until I had to replace the ABS sensor- that's when the differences were found between the US part and foreign market part

got long winded but stuff to watch for :beer:
 
Thanks for the responses. Mechanic suggested I check the forums to see what others have been using. He said he has had recent problems with the brands I mentioned.
 
jku612 said:
Thanks for the responses. Mechanic suggested I check the forums to see what others have been using. He said he has had recent problems with the brands I mentioned.
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As mentioned running larger tires and wheel with less backspacing will cause earlier failure of the unit bearings. I'd buy what I can source locally that comes with a decent warranty. O'Reilly is really easy to work with for warranty returns.

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Agreed on getting them from somewhere easy to get a warranty replacement. The last thing I’d wanna do is have to send them off to be inspected, ~$100 hubs aren’t worth the hassle


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I had to replace one of mine last week unexpected. O’Reilly had this China special on the shelf with long abs wire and a one year warranty. The one with 3 year warranty wasn’t in stock. We shall see how long it holds up. Can’t remember what brand I had that failed, but it had 25k miles on it running 37s.


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I’ve had great luck with Spicer units. I’ve purchased the last few on amazon for around $80 each which is cheap.

Ensure that you do not torque the axle nut more than the required spec. (Think it’s 100 ft/lbs). I hit a set of timkins with an impact one time as I was in a hurry finishing an axle swap and they failed rather quickly.
 
TRBOKEV said:
I’ve had great luck with Spicer units. I’ve purchased the last few on amazon for around $80 each which is cheap.

Ensure that you do not torque the axle nut more than the required spec. (Think it’s 100 ft/lbs). I hit a set of timkins with an impact one time as I was in a hurry finishing an axle swap and they failed rather quickly.
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So how do you actually torque that nut to 100’#? It seems like it takes more than that just to thread it on there. I have only ever tightened the shit out of them with a breaker bar


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JKbrick said:
What I meant was it takes more than 100 lbs to screw it down the threads. If you start the nut and put your wrench on 100 it will click with the nut clear out at the end of the threads


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I don’t think I’ve ever had that be the case... it’s been a while since I put hubs on, but if I recall mine pretty much spun by hand until making contact with the hub


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JKbrick said:
What I meant was it takes more than 100 lbs to screw it down the threads. If you start the nut and put your wrench on 100 it will click with the nut clear out at the end of the threads


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Maybe try scrubbing out the old lock tight with a wire brush first?


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RockinAZJK said:
I don’t think I’ve ever had that be the case... it’s been a while since I put hubs on, but if I recall mine pretty much spun by hand until making contact with the hub


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fiend said:
Maybe try scrubbing out the old lock tight with a wire brush first?


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Weird, I’ve always used a new nut but they never screw on by hand, they are almost like the nuts they pinch oblong to be a locknut


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