Rear Wheel Bearing Failure

rocky17

I removed the rear wheel to replace the worn tire. The bearing on the driven flange (right side of wheel, spline side) was missing the seal & half the ball bearings were gone. Metal pieces were in the final driven flange. I have a picture on my desktop but it's too big to upload. Can't figure out how to decrease the size. ST is a 2003 with 58000 miles on it. I have an extended warranty & Honda was good for the fix. Feel real lucky to have found this as the tire needed replacing & I'm leaving for a 4000 mile trip West on the 21st of this month. Anyone else find a problem like this? :eek:
 
To DOWNSIZE THE PHOTO; I'm not on my PC to be sure (using my son's Mac) but there is a way to open the photo in Microsoft Picture (maybe right click on the photo). Then when it opens in Microsfot Picture, I think you right click again and pick "edit" to where you can compress the photo to a web size photo.
 
On a Mac, in iPhoto - Usually, when a camera is connected, pictures are downloaded and stored in the iPhoto library.

Select the picture, one click. Picture will now have a yellow border around it.

File

Export

Kind - choose jpeg

Size - med or large

Export to desktop then, upload as needed.
 
Do learn to check on the physical state of the bearings every time you maintain the spline assembly as per the recommended servicing sked. Consider yourself very lucky & fortunate for the discovery with no harm to yourself or your bike. And do Ride SAFE Always!!!
 
rocky17 said:
I removed the rear wheel to replace the worn tire. The bearing on the driven flange (right side of wheel, spline side) was missing the seal & half the ball bearings were gone. Metal pieces were in the final driven flange. I have a picture on my desktop but it's too big to upload. Can't figure out how to decrease the size. ST is a 2003 with 58000 miles on it. I have an extended warranty & Honda was good for the fix. Feel real lucky to have found this as the tire needed replacing & I'm leaving for a 4000 mile trip West on the 21st of this month. Anyone else find a problem like this? :eek:
Click to expand...

I too have an '03 and it's got 44,500 miles on it. I just removed the wheels last week to have the wheels chromed (flame on) and I found that the driven flange bearings were toast. So I removed all the bearings and ordered all new bearings. They should be here on Thursday, but I won't have the wheel back for a couple weeks anyway. It seems like every time I read of someone with a wheels bearing failure it's always the driven flange bearings. I could have warranteed it I suppose, but I do all my own work.
 
this is what a final drive bearing looks like when it completely blows up while riding, i almost died when this happened, since i had entered a corner at 110 and the rear end got super loose, i was able to save it .... this was on a kawi 750 and i'm happy to be around to tell the story ...

IM004337.jpg
 
chiller said:
this is what a final drive bearing looks like when it completely blows up while riding, i almost died when this happened, since i had entered a corner at 110 and the rear end got super loose, i was able to save it .... this was on a kawi 750 and i'm happy to be around to tell the story ...
Click to expand...

You probably only have 2 bearings on that wheel... .That's one nice thing about the ST setup... you're gonna hear some very strange noised to warn you before it ever gets that bad because if one fails the others will keep you up, hopefully long enough to get help.
 
yes only 2 bearings on that wheels, 1 per side, plus 1 spacer per side ... this happened to the 750 at approx 45k .... the ST i checked it before going west at 68k and it was fine, the ST now is currently at 75-76k and I'll check it at the next tire change ... if I get to 100k I will just get them changed out for my own mental health to not bother thinkinga bout it ...
 
I may change mine out at 50k intervals maybe 30.. not sure... my '03 had 2 bearing changes within the first 27k... I attribute the 1st change to a true failure and the 2nd to a bad installation as they crapped out in about 6k miles. So, I'm a little paranoid even if it's not the same bike.
 
Mellow said:
I may change mine out at 50k intervals maybe 30.. not sure... my '03 had 2 bearing changes within the first 27k... I attribute the 1st change to a true failure and the 2nd to a bad installation as they crapped out in about 6k miles. So, I'm a little paranoid even if it's not the same bike.
Click to expand...

Was it the driven flange bearing for you too, Joe?
 
georgeorge said:
Was it the driven flange bearing for you too, Joe?
Click to expand...

Yes, if one is going to fail, it will be the one that has the most torque / pressure applied and that seems to be the culprit. In my case, the guy that did the final bearing change said two were out but I think it was just a basic install foul up.. I went to a different dealer the 2nd time.

I actually went to one dealer with the wheel that said the bearings were fine..
 
georgeorge said:
nice...:mad:

I wonder if Honda knows that every bearing that fails is always this one. Seems like a design change might be in order.
Click to expand...

I'd like to see the single sided swingarm of the wing designed for the ST... so easy to take the rear wheel off and no wheel bearing issues.
 
The drive side flange bearing just failed at 15k miles on my 07' ST1300 also. I pulled the rear wheel to have a new tire mounted and found numerous metal shavings on the drive spline on the wheel and also inside of the spline on the final drive side. Further inspection revealed that half of the roller balls were missing from the bearing. I think that we all should check the bearings any time a wheel is removed.
 
I used the picture resizer Mellow gave the link to & the attachment is what my bearing looked like.
 

Attachments

  • ST1300 Bearing (640 x 480).jpg
    ST1300 Bearing (640 x 480).jpg
    52.5 KB · Views: 282
I just had a left side rear wheel bearing (opposite of drive) fail. Flange and right side bearings were all ok. It was on a 2003 ST1300 with 84k miles. The symptom was a "pinging" while in straight and level flight...er....uh...riding. I thought at first it was backfiring through the left exhaust because it seemed to be louder in a left bank...er...uh...turn. Also it seemed to occur more often while dual. I determined finally it had to be wheel bearing after coasting the bike at 35mph with engine off and the "backfire" still occured. It was even more obvious when I put it on the center stand and I found 1/4 inch side to side play in the rear wheel assembly. It was definately a "duh" moment.
 
The VTX also had this issue but never w/ my VTX...is this another one of those common things that haapens w/ the ST?

I only have 7k on my bike right now so I haven't experienced any failures yet. (knock on wood)
 
My 06 has 6500 miles on it and I will replace the bearings whenever I replace the tires.
Honda knows better than to put junk parts in a nice bike!
 
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