Rear wheel bearing problem!! WTF

[fzar]

So I went for a ride today, hit a few twisties and on a straight stretch cruising along I felt the back wheel veer off to one side. I thought I had a puncture in the rear, pulled over checked pressure, all good. I rode a mile or so more and it was freaking me out, so I pulled over again and rode around parking lot without my helmet on to see/hear anything of distinction. I for sure heard what I thought was a chain link that was crimped. i take another look and I see a piece of rubber from a seal I think where the spacer was supposed to be, and no spacer!! I'm like WTF.

I'm now thinking I'm in trouble and I have a bearing issue, I couldn't leave the bike where it was, so I pushed the bike a 1/2 mile down the road to the nearest gas station so there was cameras, called my wife to pick me up, booked a u-haul motorcycle trailer on the car ride home, picked it up, got the bike home to pull the rear wheel and figure out what happened. I bought these wheel of someone on-line that claimed they had 700 miles, I put another 500-600 on them( I don't think that matters!) They were in  spotless condition. I have my OEM's that have 24,500 miles on them and never had a single issue, F**&ed if I know what happened. 

Any ideas? or prognosis from anyone?

[DewMan]

OUCH! How many miles/km on them?

[1tondriver]

Damn that thing is wasted

[mossrider]

Put some new ones in there and quit fooling around.

[sorkyah]

Now you've got me wondering if my wobble is from a bad bearing 

Pressure was good, felt a small wobble on an uneven road this morning 

[fzar]

EDited and Updated @mossrider @1tondriver and @DewMan

[1tondriver]

Reputable seller? Idk, I have never seen or heard of such a complete destruction of a bearing with such low miles. 

[fzar]

I took more pictures, I'll post of disassembly in the stages pieces came out of the hub.

[fzar]

1 minute ago, 1tondriver said:

Reputable seller? Idk, I have never seen or heard of such a complete destruction of a bearing with such low miles. 

No, a guy who was building a FZ-07R to race, and to the second part of your statement, either have I, or even know how it happened. Luckily I can put the OEM's back on with Q3+'s F&R. Nothing else seems to be damaged, other than the caliper mount that was rubbing the rear brake disc you can see in the first picture.

[mossrider]

Hold on, back up. 

Was there a wheel spacer on the rotor side? Between the bearing and the brake carrier.

How about the center spacer, inside the wheel hub between the bearings?

Edited October 18, 2019 by mossrider

[fzar]

11 minutes ago, mossrider said:

Hold on, back up. 

Was there a wheel spacer on the rotor side? Between the bearing and the brake carrier.

How about the center spacer, inside the wheel hub between the bearings?

Heres the grease blowout on the axle, Yes there was a wheel spacer on the on the rotor side, its in picture #2 &#3 above and pic#2 below. In went inside the hub!!! Scary S@@t..

In order of removal left-right. top - bottom

Grease blowout on the caliper mount and wear (top right) from rubbing the disc shown in the last pictures I posted.

[mossrider]

Looks like w/o that wheel spacer the bearing walked out and spun. The only thing holding the wheel centered would be the rotor between the pads, not very secure, some lateral wheel movement and lots of uncontroled friction and blewy?

[shinyribs]

Provided all the wheel spacers were correct....

I've seen bikes with 40 year old wheel bearings that had 50k+ miles on them. Without being abused, a good sealed bearing ( or one regularly greased) can go a LONG time. But...one dude with a pressure washer can wreck some bearings in no time flat. 

[fzar]

9 hours ago, shinyribs said:

Provided all the wheel spacers were correct...

I checked the assembly after I put a tire on it, before I balanced it. This is my 5th. Rear tire and I never had a problem before now.

 

9 hours ago, shinyribs said:

I've seen bikes with 40 year old wheel bearings that had 50k+ miles on them.

 I hear ya. Like I said my OEM has almost 25K miles on it and no problems.

 

9 hours ago, shinyribs said:

But...one dude with a pressure washer can wreck some bearings in no time flat. 

I can’t say I know what the previous owner has or has not done. I do know,  I’m lucky I caught it when I did, and pushed it to the gas station. 
I’m also grateful for the sheriff who whipped around and escorted me for the last 200 yards so no one would rear-end me while I was pushing the bike, then jumped out and helped me push the bike. It turns out he’s also motorcycle cop for the county.

Anyway, back to the investigation and swapping out wheels.

 

[fzar]

Here’s the sprocket side:

[YZEtc]

Is that tan-colored stuff in the last pic sand or dirt?

Something unusual with this wheel definitely brought this on.

Edited October 19, 2019 by YZEtc

[twf]

That looks like sprocket carrier rubbing paint off.

If spacer between carrier and wheel was missing it would cause bearing failure. 

[fzar]

15 hours ago, YZEtc said:

Is that tan-colored stuff in the last pic sand or dirt?

Something unusual with this wheel definitely brought this on.

Do you mean in between the cush-drives? If so the picture is bad it's actually metallic (bare metal) if thats what your on about? As you can see the cush- mounts/drives? saddle's have been worn down significantly (thats what I call them, the rubber piece that holds them together) The bigger concern to me, is the fact that, the bearings are visible through the sealed unit they come in from factory. 

I'll say this again, I'm stumped how this happened. But it scared the crap out of me when I took it apart.

Anyway, 520 conversion almost installed, I have to figure out how much I need to rivet the new chain links. I have to go back to the original wheel's and bearings. 

[fzar]

5 hours ago, twf said:

That looks like sprocket carrier rubbing paint off.

If spacer between carrier and wheel was missing it would cause bearing failure. 

I think your right as the spacer from the rear disc side vanished internally into the hub.!!!

 

[fzar]

On 10/17/2019 at 7:51 PM, mossrider said:

Looks like w/o that wheel spacer the bearing walked out and spun. The only thing holding the wheel centered would be the rotor between the pads, not very secure, some lateral wheel movement and lots of uncontroled friction and blewy?

The rotor pushed the piston on the caliper all the way out, as its right side. To the point it was rubbing the caliper mount against the disc.

On 10/17/2019 at 7:38 PM, fzar said:

.

 

[mossrider]

Ok, check to see if this spacers is in place,

This is the one Zoran is referring to, behind the cush drive. Its pressed I to the inside of the cush drive and rests against the wheel bearing when the wheel is properly in place. The inner spacer butts against the inside of that bearing. It also keeps the two from rubbing metal on metal so you wouldn't see that marring in the wheel voids.

[Evill_Ed]

I’m trying to understand how the caliper mount made contact with the rotor? The spacer should maintain a fixed distance. 

[twf]

14 minutes ago, Evill_Ed said:

I’m trying to understand how the caliper mount made contact with the rotor? The spacer should maintain a fixed distance. 

Left spacer was missing which caused bearings to move left until bracket started hitting rotor.

There was no clamping torque on bearings and they failed.

[fzar]

I’ll answer questions tomorrow, as it’s become more apparent to what happened. it was the right spacer, rear disc, that vanished into the hub. The bearing blew. Leaving the left side to fight ( sprocket side) spacer and bearing to do the work. The left side spacer can’t stop the wheel on the axle running to the right and the spacer had travelled into the hub with the bearing. The only winner here was ME. 
I got lucky it was only an inconvenience, rather than a wreck.

[geophb]

Looks to me like bearing got really hot (who knows why), melted the seal blew grease all over, got even hotter then the bearing cage broke.  Or the cage failed just because, looks like stuff melted to me though.  If there wasn't a spacer that rear wheel would have been flopping all over before the bearing failed and you would have had to pump the rear brake because the rear pads would have been so far apart from the rotor moving so much.