Been having a weird time recently with bearings, certain wheels feel good with zealous and other wheels chatter like hell. Wondering if it's worth trying bones standard bearings with a spacer or to just stick with zealous but get brand new ones?
Been having a weird time recently with bearings, certain wheels feel good with zealous and other wheels chatter like hell. Wondering if it's worth trying bones standard bearings with a spacer or to just stick with zealous but get brand new ones?
I have some old zealous that rattle a bit rigt now after years of abuse, I'd say that they wear out just like any other bearing.
If you are taking high speeds or just feel like having smooth bearings, the best to do is to buy new ones for sure, and get those on a old board or in some beat up wheels, just like I did, that way you only have to change wheels and shred them without care and without beating up your "smooth" ones.
About chattering depending on wheels, a bad wheel core can missalign the bearings, also if the wheels are out of shpe it can help with chatter. Very solid cores or hard urethane tend to make a higher pitch sound too.
On another note, if you are looking for new bearings and don't feel comfortable with zealous for whatever reason, I would recommend the new Sesimic 6ball steel XT (or ceramic if you are into that). They are higher quality, align better than Zealous and I would say they roll smoother and longer, they are more expensive though.
@Logan Neikirk Its the wheel/pave most likely is my guess, what are you riding? Some wheels suck for chattering, and they will honk too if its the wheels, I remember that being more of a issue with thanes from 10 years ago but not as common now.
@Matt Needs Wheels right now I ride decently grippy pave, mostly skate decently slippery wheels. 88 vipers yellow, Rayne envy v2, yellow krimes, 78a primo pasters. Definitely get the most chatter on the primos, everything else isn't so bad. Recently tried bones with bearing spacers on the 88s and it was chatter city. For reference my zealous might be a year old tho, but it's mostly noticeable in big slides I'll get chatter mid slide almost to the point of throwing my feet off.
New bearings could help, but zealous are fine. Are you making sure that the bearing is seated properly and that you've tightened them down really hard? I crank the axle nuts down as hard as possible.
@Logan Neikirk ah if its all wheels, its not your wheels
@Gabriel Fockler yep I crank them tf down, broke a couple skate tools doing it actually. But yes I'm thinking it's my bearings
