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To Grease Or Seize, That Is The Question

13373 Views 26 Replies 9 Participants Last post by  GatorJoe, 
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Hopefully I'll be mounting my new tires on my '12 Super Glide soon. Been watching all the YouTube videos and starting to feel confident I can do it, even on a Harley.

On all my bikes over the years, when re-installing an axle, I gave it a light coat of wheel bearing grease. The YouTube videos call for anti-seize.

Eyeballed a HD forum and some say grease, some say anti-seize. It looks like to me, if I need to pull the axle in less than 20 years, grease will be okay.

Then some sites wandered off in to spark plugs and stuff that didn't interest me. Thought I would see what you home Harley mechanics thought, grease or anti-seize? :plain:
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With my dirt bikes, street bikes and touring bikes, I've always used wheel bearing grease whenever I've had reason to pull the axle. They don't seem to be able to agree on the HD site I was on.

Don't know why a Harley axle should be any different than any other motorcycle axle I've dealt with. But I did want, and appreciate the opinions I get on here.

Thanks fellow riders,
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I hope to get a couple years out of the tires, but more would be better. :)

i think I'll still be making payments when the next set of tires are needed. If grease is the wrong choice, I'm sure I'll know better next time, maybe. :)
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Changed the front tire, used high temperature wheel bearing grease on the axle. Got to get some bigger star sockets before I can get the rear wheel off.
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Both axles reinserted with high temp wheel bearing grease. Rear wheel has new wheel bearings now too. Didn't really need them but I didn't know they could be installed too tight until I got one out, then I wasn't going to put just one new one in, so both bearings got replaced. Next time I'll know better.
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When I pulled the front wheel off, I checked the bearings. Both were as smooth as glass and felt like, well like they're supposed to feel like.
When I pulled the rear wheel off, I had to use a great deal of force to get either bearing to turn just a little bit. So I thought it was bad. So I got the new bearings and a puller/installer.
When I pulled the first bearing out of the wheel, I checked it again. Son of a gun, it worked just fine. The bearings had been forced in too tight against the piece of pipe that sits between the two bearings inside the wheel.
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I didn't see or feel any damage. I cleaned the axle up real good with brake cleaner and cleaned inside the wheel. Used a flashlight to look inside the wheel. I think with the weight of the bike sitting on the bearings, it must have made them work.
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Plain old high temp wheel bearing grease is what it got.
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Rear wheel got new bearings.
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