7mm micro spacers
Hi. I was lurking around the bont site because I think I’d like to try some of their wheels that take micro , and bearings too. Their seems to be no other manufactures making a 167 bearing. The info page on these wheels states “bearing spacers must be used”.
my questions are:
1) Are the spacers necessary with all micro bearings?
2) Where to find bearing spacers for 7mm axles?
3) How to determine width?
-thanks for any responses....
Comments
Bont 167 are the only easily available 7x16x5mm bearings. The 8x16x5mm 688s are all over everywhere. If you want to put 167s in regular 22mm bearing wheels they make adapters.
I personally NEVER recommend spacers between bearings. None of the current wheel manufacturers can hold a close enough bearing spacing tolerance to make bearing spacers of any use. They spacers will either be too wide so the hubs slide on the bearing or too narrow so the bearings are side loaded when the axle nut is torqued. Neither condition is acceptable.
I have the very first set of prototype Bont Micro bearing wheels. I have rolled the bejeebers out of them w/o spacers for many years. No problems.
So to answer your questions:
1) Bearing spacers are not necessary with any skate wheel and in 20 years doing this I have never seen any failure I could relate to lack of same.. Of course not correctly setting up the wheels on the axles can be an issue.
2) Back in the day lots of precision bearing hubs came with matching (so called) spacers but they are much narrower than the current ~0.25 to 0.315" spacing you stumble across currently.
3) Bearing spacing is relatively simple to determine. One machines the proper OD fixture to put into the back side of the wheel. Clamp itt in the vise and then drop the tail end of a caliper into the hole and seat the back end on the upper bearing seat. I would suggest several measurements to allow for operator "fudging".
But since they are more trouble than they are worth... Let me tell ya a story. Years ago my daughter competed on inlines. every time we changed wheels, I rechecked the side play in the frames. If there was too much (spacer too narrow) I would measure the one coming out and estimate what I needed to fix it. I will say I got really good @ it too. If the wheel would not spin then I put in a narrower spacer until it spun w/ no lateral play. One wanted no lateral play and not cramping of the bearing.
woow nice