03996

Quick question for those of you who've used the replacement bearing. I believe at least one person has done the work recently............

On the LN website, i states that the new bearing has better lubrication due in part to the lack of a seal on the bearing. I received my bearing today and in looking at it, it is "sealed" back and front??

Tried to call them but they are obviously not working today.

Has anyone exprienced the same thing with their bearing? if so did you ask LN about the "no seal" statement on their site?

Many thanks

Les.

trapperdog

Wow. This is interesting. I thought it was without seals, too, but don't know for sure.

machbx

The seal on the OEM bearing was supposed to be hermetic - permeant - but heat , normal wear and thinner oil corrupts those, and the heavier lube - which is a grease gets flushed away - your new LN bearing is closed but not sealed in the manner in the OEM was. So it closed to prevent big things from getting to the bearing - but oil and lubricants can still work in the race. I don't have one - but that was my understanding

03996

Where did you find this info machbx? Here's what the LN site has to say about their new bearing..........

"With our IMS Retrofit™ and IMS Upgrade, we chose to use a ceramic hybrid bearing which requires less lubrication and is designed specifically for poor lubrication environments. Coupled with the lack of grease seals, the new bearing is lubricated by splash as well as submersion lubrication (depending on operating conditions)......."

I sent an email off to them to try to remove my confusion but wanted to see if anyone has any first had experience of handling this new bearing. I expect to hear back from them Monday. I'll let the list know of their reply.

knfeparty

The bearing is shielded but not sealed. It might look like there's no room, but oil will pass around that shield and lubricate the bearing.

So far so good on my LNE bearing; about 20k miles now.

03996

Excellent, just what I was looking for knfeparty! Thanks.

NZ951

Just replace it with a stock one... mine has lasted 75k so far...

aviography

This is one of the pix I took at a local shop last week, the one on the right is the larger OEM single row bearing from a later 996/997, the on the left is a brand new out of the box LN dual row bearing.

The black seal on the OEM bearing is clearly evident, there is no seal on the LN bearing, there is a metal "cage" but not a full face seal like the OEM bearing.

FWIW, I also took pix and felt an OEM dual row bearing, it looks exactly the same as the LN bearing in terms of the metal "cage".

OP, do you have the single or dual row bearing? Does it look like the LN bearing on the left of my pix in terms of the metal "cage" or does it have full face seal similar to the single row bearing on the right?

aviography

Forgot I had a side-by-side OEM vs. LN dual-row bearing pix.

On the left is the OEM, on the right is a brand new LN bearing.

What I forgot to ask, and not sure if the shop would have remembered, is if the OEM bearing had a full face seal on both sides of the bearing........., maybe Jake or others who have done it recently can pop in and clarify.

03996

My new LN bearing is of the single row type and the cage on it is nothing like the cage on the dual row bearing.

jasper

Now you see, I didn't know the M97 had a larger diameter than the M96 bearing. Thanks for that info.

I'm taking a real keen interest in the M97 bearings...seeing as I have one in my 2002 996.

For what it's worth...my M97 has 80K miles on it and it's not leaking or shedding iron. It's a daily driver (when I'm not riding the M/C) so It will have 100K miles soon.

Given that selling a high mileage 996 is as good as impossible - I hope to be providing mileage updates for years to come.

aviography

Can you please take some pix and post them? It will be worth a few thousand words!

03996

I'll give it a shot!

03996

Here's a couple of pics.......the mark on the back side of the bearing is grease. If you compare the different LN bearings you'll see that this one's cage looks quite different from the others, and in fact to me looked like a seal, hence the initial question.

redridge

hmmm, that does look like a seal.... subscr.