Full Floater Bearing Lubrication

[Goosesdad]

Anyone have advice on lubrication direction:
1. Pack the floater bearings with wheel bearing grease. Use axle seals in the tubes to confine the axle grease to the housing.
2. No seals and let the rear end grease lube the bearings.

I've seen both directions but have pinged a number of experts/manufactures and seems most go with #2.... and don't fear the wheel bearings being starved in high speed/long corners.

I'm sending my rear end out for powder coating and need to remove the factory installed seals no matter which direction as they won't live up to the heat of powder coating but looking for advice moving forward from there.

Thanks in advance.

[dontlifttoshift]

I am a big fan of number one. Then you _know_ the bearings are lubed.

Keeping the diff oil out of the hubs also prevent leaks. Most hubs don't seal all that well.

[Goosesdad]

I am a big fan of number one. Then you _know_ the bearings are lubed.

Keeping the diff oil out of the hubs also prevent leaks. Most hubs don't seal all that well.

Thanks Donny!!! Appreciate the advice.

[Build-It-Break-it]

I literally just assembled mine yesterday and went with option 1. I just couldn't see the gear oil sloshing enough to lube the bearings.

[Goosesdad]

I literally just assembled mine yesterday and went with option 1. I just couldn't see the gear oil sloshing enough to lube the bearings.

Thanks Ahmad! Which floater do you have ?

[Build-It-Break-it]

I'm using the speedway engineering floater.

[gerno]

I tried running mine without the inner seals and ended up puking gear oil all over the inside of the rear brake disks . Definitely recommend option 1 based on my experience

[Goosesdad]

Thanks guys. Tend to agree. Interesting that Baer is recommending option 2.
I have a Currie rear end and they ship it with the axle seals already installed...which is very cool. However, I'm going to powder coat the housing so they have to come out. Getting those babies out is like pulling teeth. Supposedly there is a special tool but nobody seems to know where to get one. There is an inner retaining lip in the axle tube that prevents hammering them out.
I'm going to run it past Baer one more time as well. But I like the idea of packing the bearings .

Thanks again for the advice...appreciated.

[WOLF1732]

If you have a speedway engineering floater you need to go with option 1
if you have a oil pump in the floater like some NASCAR rears and you can provide positive lubrication to the bearing sets go with option #2.
As a side note make sure you use a solid bearing spacer to lock the bearing pre-load.
In alum hubs this a must you "might" get away with not doing it on steel hubs.

[GEARBOXGARAGE]

I decided to go with option 3, sealed C7 hub on a SpeedTech full floater built by Dutchman. There's an inner and outer axle seal in each tube to keep fluids from leaving the center.

[rixtrix1]

If you have a speedway engineering floater you need to go with option 1
s
As a side note make sure you use a solid bearing spacer to lock the bearing pre-load.
In alum hubs this a must you "might" get away with not doing it on steel hubs.

X2 on the bearing spacers! Well worth the $120 or so as the bearings will run extremely cooler with much less drag. I've seen 80-100F cooler with spacers on an oval track car; difference in drag can be measured with a inch/pound torque wrench much like checking pinion preload. This was on several Speedway Motors full floaters, but I doubt if there was much difference from a Speedway Engrg one. All had Winters steel hubs.