Servicing Natasha's wheel bearings

Almost 5K Kilometers overdue, today I serviced the front and sidecar wheel bearings on Natasha, my Ural sidecar rig.  Why so late, well, about 5K kilometers ago, I was actually recovering from a sheared apart sidecar drive shaft!  Scheduled maintenance was really the last thing on my mind.  Still, no excuse.

I didn't service the bearings on the present pusher tire since it's a new wheel with new bearings.  I just realized though as I write this that I forgot to do the spare wheel's bearings.  Dang it.  Oh well, it's a spare for a reason, not much wear on it.  It'll wait till the next cycle of service.

Following the beautifully written and photo demonstrated instructions at Bill Glaser's outstanding myural.com site, I removed both front and sidecar wheels, took out the bearing assemblies, cleaned them of the old grease (what there was remaining anyways), packed new grease into the bearings, put it all back in the hubs and remounted the wheels.  NO problems, no hassles, easy peasy!

 

 Here's a view of the sidecar wheel's hub splines, they were in good shape

 

This is a view of the sidecar wheel's drum brake assembly and splines, also in good shape

The front wheel's drum brake assembly, note that it does not have splines

so yes, if your pusher wheel becomes stripped of its splines,

you can swap the front and rear wheels and carry on!

(Yes, I would clean all the brake dust off before putting the wheel back on)

I guess there was no grease on it from the factory since no splines are involved in the front wheel

I went ahead and gave everything a light coat of grease anyways to prevent further rust

 

 This is the old grease on the sidecar wheel bearings, they were definitely due for service!

 

 The sidecar wheel bearings and bushing, with new grease on!

I used this video to learn how to "pack bearings" by hand   It's easy, but messy.

 

 This is the front wheel bearings, glad I pulled them today to repack them with new grease!

 

 Ah, new grease on the front wheel bearings and bushing

Re-assembly was per the instructions at Bill Glaser's site.  I really could not imagine trying to do this service without the help he's provided to Uralisti everywhere!

As I said before, no problems encountered and there was only minimal use of the BFH to "entice" things to fit correctly.  I feel better now about the condition of all the wheel bearings presently on the rolling wheels on Natasha.  Another wrenching experience for the old knowledge bank.