We are in the process of having the front fork reassembled after prep and paint. I mentioned to Christopher Markley that we were replacing the bearings and bought replacements already. On a couple occations Christopher really encouraged me to replace the front bearings with "sealed" bearings -- a nice modern convenience and when I finally decided to return the bearings I bought Christopher turned me on to our local SKF bearings dealer (who knew we had such a thing!). Bottom line folks, find your local (or nearest) SKF dealer and purchase your bearings through them. On average bearings at the scoot shop where I made my purchase at were between 35-50% cheaper (yes, 50% cheaper for the same exact bearing!) at my SKF dealer. Because it was so much cheaper I upgraded to the top of the line sealed bearings and still managed to save $8 total (after my 20% restocking fee at my scoot shop, which is NOT local -- it's on the other coast -- and my bearing shop is right here in town). There are three levels of bearings I looked at.
1) Open bearings -- lowest grade and cheapest
2) Shield bearings -- mid grade with steel protectors around the bearings
3) Sealed bearings -- highest grade (no containments may enter the bearing, but you can not re-greese it either. These bearings should be good for 25 years) These bearings are a slight overkill.
If you do not have a local SKF dealer, check out:
Applied Industrial Technologies
www.applied.com
717.564.8780
Damn hind site is 20/20 . . . I should have replaced my rear bearings from here as well (no need to go sealed -- that's overkill on the rear)
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