What grease for starter bearing?

[Anonymous]

Getting ready to reassemble my starter and was checking if basic wheel bearing grease was recommended for the bearings. Seems obvious on the bushing one but the roller bearing I wasn't so sure about. Manual doesn't mention anything about what to use.
Any thoughts?
Thanks.

This will be the first "complete" item on the rebuild. Everything else is still in various stages of "doneness". Yee-haa

[kz]

If you mean your GS 1150 ES,

i used normal SKF-bearing grease for the bearings as I changed my starter rotor.

[Anonymous]

If you mean your GS 1150 ES,

i used normal SKF-bearing grease for the bearings as I changed my starter rotor.

No it's the 1100.
What does SKF stand for?

[kz]

Normal high quality roller bearing grease, standing heat

[Hap Call]

That should be a sealed bearing, I believe. If it is not, use a high quality bearing grease such as Chevron SRI #2. Do not over grease it to prevent grease from getting in the stater motor itself.

Hap

[kz]

On the GS 1150, at least one bearing is not sealed stock.

[Clone]

Use a high quality, high temperature grease or it will liquify and coat your armature, this will cause the carbon from the brushes to soften and coat the contact area. Then you have to pull it and clean it again. I learned from experience, never again. HIGH-TEMP MOLY from now on! 8)

[dgeorge]

I'm picking up the brushes for my starter today also, so will be reinstalling it this weekend. I have a 83 GS1100GK and it looks like the front bearings are oiled from the engine, it has a seal just past the bearings to keep engine oil out of the starter anyway. So do I need to greese these or just let the engine oil them?

[Hap Call]

I'm picking up the brushes for my starter today also, so will be reinstalling it this weekend. I have a 83 GS1100GK and it looks like the front bearings are oiled from the engine, it has a seal just past the bearings to keep engine oil out of the starter anyway. So do I need to greese these or just let the engine oil them?

You have a roller type bearing, not a ball type bearing if I am not mistaken.... you use the oil from the engine to lube your bearing.

Really, considering the duty cycle of these bearing (maybe 10 minutes total loading on the bearing during the life of the bike) I would think that a little bit of quality hi-temp grease will work for the life of any of the ball type bearings. It is the other end of the starter that would be the most concern to me. There is no roller or ball bearing...it just uses the aluminum end bell of the motor as a plain bearing. I realize that there is very little load here but you want to insure that it is clean and has some small amount of lubricant there.

Hap

[dgeorge]

Thanks Hap. that is what I thought. I intend to put a small amount of hi temp greese on the other end where it goes into the housing.

[Anonymous]

I believe SKF stands for "Svenska kugel fabriken" or in english, swedish ballbearing factory.

Your's, me.

[kz]

Correct Orkanen,

SKF, means "Svenska kullagerfabriken" and is the worlds largest bearing manufucturer.

They had a bearing called Volvo, meaning "I roll" i latin, the name was transferred to a car manufacturer in the end of 1920ties.

https://www.skf.com