This is on a heavy truck with oil lubricated tapered roller front wheel bearings. I replaced the bearings yesterday and filled up with 75W90 gear oil and only noticed afterwards that I had grabbed the wrong bottle. This bottle of 75W90 was well capped and stored indoors and undisturbed for about 25 years. Oil looked fine and had a nice golden colour. Should I replace the oil with fresh 75W90?
25 Year Old Oil For Wheel Bearings
- Thread starter George7941
- Start date
So long as the oil meets the spec of what it went into I would not worry.
I wouldn't worry about it from a sealed container.
What kind of truck?
What kind of truck?
JHZR2
Staff member
Pretty sure I have 40yo lubricants in the still original parts of my old MBs. Not heavy truck, but still old...
I doubt that it has degraded much... Id run it unless it makes you uneasy. If so, then use it as a "flush" and replace again.
I doubt that it has degraded much... Id run it unless it makes you uneasy. If so, then use it as a "flush" and replace again.
2006 Freightliner M2 Business Class
The bearings had failed. Oddly enough the inner bearing was a cheap Chinese bearing, Hyatt, and the outer bearing was a Timken and it was the Timken that failed. There was a lot of fine debris in the hub and I cleaned it out the best I could. I do not have a solvent tank. I will change the oil soon and that will get some of the remaining debris out.
The hub takes about 500 ml of oil and there is no easy way of draining it all out. Most of the oil gets trapped in the hub cavity between the two bearings. Removing the drain plug on the hub cover will drain out about 150 ml. I will have to do that multiple times.
The bearings had failed. Oddly enough the inner bearing was a cheap Chinese bearing, Hyatt, and the outer bearing was a Timken and it was the Timken that failed. There was a lot of fine debris in the hub and I cleaned it out the best I could. I do not have a solvent tank. I will change the oil soon and that will get some of the remaining debris out.
The hub takes about 500 ml of oil and there is no easy way of draining it all out. Most of the oil gets trapped in the hub cavity between the two bearings. Removing the drain plug on the hub cover will drain out about 150 ml. I will have to do that multiple times.
One step ahead of you- Removed the hub. replaced both races, replaced oil seal, put everything back together and then filled up with the 25 year old oil. I was referring to draining all of the 25 year old oil.
As an aside, welding a bead on the race makes them drop out when the race cools. For installing I gently heated the hub with a torch to about 100*C, cooled the races in a freezer and was able to tap the races into place easily.
