And now for some unsolicited opinion and advice....Wheel Bearings at a glance, from the book "As Pat sees it".
If you have any concerns about safety or bearing performance, stay away from Chinese and Russian manufactured bearings. Moose bearings are re-packaged All Balls bearings, made in China.
And now a word about who sells them. Parts marketing concepts for the KLR 650 had to have been developed from a missing chapter of Mad Max or Thunderdome.
Anyone wanting a glimpse into post-apocalyptic motor sports only need to browse a KLR 650 forum. If you are looking for magic mushrooms, a semi-social character in a shack in the desert might be a good place to look. For bearings, stick to the more industrial areas, like a bonafide parts house. If you open some dictionaries to the word "Hyperbole", they show a picture of a KLR 650.
All bearings aren't created equal. Most reviews on bearings in the motorcycle world are not much more than acknowledgment that the bearings were cheap, fit in the hole, and did not interfere with the wheels ability to spin. All of this determined before the bike was removed from the lift. You will read where these same review submitters replace those bearings every other year or more often. A good tool steel grade bearing will outlast the motorcycle they were installed in, with a little maintenance.
MAINTENANCE???? But they're SEALED. We can't do no stinkin' maintenance on a sealed bearing! Why is he saying these things!??
Well, the first words that will cross any old school Millwright's lips will be "Bullshit". These are "sealed" bearings and they have plastic covers inserted between the outer race and the inner. These seals can be [carefully] pried out with a small screwdriver, even when they are still installed in the wheel. There is controversy about quantity of grease in a sealed bearing, regarding the amount affecting cooling. A boxers or briefs situation. Another controversial topic regarding sealed bearing and grease is the use of synthetic grease. I don't use synthetic grease in these app's. The seals are not good enough to contain the synthetic products if the bearings get hot enough. An example is using synthetic oil in an old engine. It is common for older engines to spew oil all over when switched to synthetic oil, as the old seals that were adequate for retaining dino oil, were not up to retaining the synthetic oil. In the bearing application, should the heated synthetic grease in the bearing escape, you will be running a dry bearing. For a while, anyway. Not long.
ALL bearings are metric, so you can buy replacements at any auto parts store or bearing supplier. There are, of course, varying degree of quality bearings, and I'm of the opinion that this is not the place to save 3 bucks. Their size is marked on the sides of the outer race and is represented by three sets of numbers [outer race outside diameter x inner race inside diameter x width] in millimeters. If they are un-readable and there is not a vernier caliper handy, remove and take the old one with you to be matched up. Better yet, take the old one along anyway.
You can cross reference just about any bearing using the stamped catalog number [on the body or inner race] to a high quality, high shock load bearing, corrosive resistant, wear resistant bearing and they aren't that expensive. Sealed bearings usually have 2RS as a suffix to the size number, as in "6203 2RS".
This is not about "American Pride" or China bashing. It is about corner carving, and having to describe the outcome using the words "wheel bearing" and "catastrophic failure" in the same sentence. And new threads that compare the deductibles of various insurance carriers for skin grafts. There won't be $15.00 difference between the cheap bearings and the better quality bearings, and once you factor in shipping, the local bearings will only be a few dollars more. The chances of Fred showing up at my door to save my bacon is as likely as Scarlett Johansson creating a disturbance by beating on my back door, begging for a second chance. The chances of catastrophic failure of a Chinese bearing is much higher than that of a high quality, tool grade steel bearing from the local NAPA.
