…wheel bearing grease… December 15, 2007

…so, I have an update on my first experience with repacking my bicycle wheel bearings…

Since I didn’t have the correct grease, but wanted to get my bike back on the road, I messed around with mixing some stuff up that I had in the garage. What I found was that mixing the multi purpose red grease with some white lithium grease and some anti-seize lubricant resulted in a smoothly blended grease that was the same consistency and color as what was in the bike in the first place. So, I tried it out.

Several days later, my assessment is that the blend works just fine. The wheel rolls great. There are no apparent problems with the home-blended grease yet. Do I recommend doing it this way as a norm? No. Is it ok in a pinch? Probably.

Also, if you don’t have a really thin metric wrench to hold the cone nut while you tighten the locknut, you can grind the sides down on a 1/2″ open end wrench, and it should work just fine (mine did). I’m adding the ground down wrench to my slowly growing bag of bike tools, and I’m mixing up a small amount of the grease to have on hand, just in case.

Here’s how I mixed it:

Start with the multi-purpose red grease. Start mixing in white lithium grease a little at a time until you get a smooth consistency that is about a light rose or salmon color. The amounts are not exact, but you will use more red than white. Once you’ve got that mixture right where you want it, add a tiny bit of anti-seize. A little goes a long way when mixing this up, so start with a drop or two of anti-seize for a half cup of grease mixture. The anti-seize won’t blend as readily as the greases, but keep stirring. You should end up with a silvery-pinkish grease mixture. Try it out and let me know how it works for you.

Also, if you don’t have anti-seize, you can mix your own with some dry graphite or molybdenum and a little mineral oil. That’s it. Pretty easy…