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Can I use ZZ (steel seal) ball bearing instead of RS (rubber seal)?

Bicycles Asked by PTwr on August 2, 2021

TLDR: is 16100 ZZ (steel sealed) 10x28x8mm bearing good for 8.5inch wheel at 25km/h under 100kg load?

Long story, in case someone has better solution:

I am in process of replacing my rear-drive e-scooter front wheel because its so atypical I just can’t buy tire/tube (weird size split-rim), so I snatched (almost) same size wheel of popular brand. New wheel had weird axle so I used power of hammer to get rid of it and… encountered a blocking bug.

Original wheel bearing: 6000 RS 10x26x8mm

New wheel bearing: 6001 RS 12x28x8mm

I can not reuse old axle, I can’t use new axle, I can’t find 12×100 bolt-axle (and even if I could, I’d have to drill out +2mm to fork holes).

After learning more about ball bearings that I am comfortable with, I found out that 16100 10x28x8 exists. Perfect match.

However I can obtain only ZZ (steel sealed) locally, RS (rubber sealed) would arrive after a month or two straight from Chinese factory. Ugh.

I know that sealing in bearing is important, and scooter wheel is much closer to wet and dirty ground than bicycle. It will also spin quite fast as its beefy 25km/h+ scooter.
Me + scooter + baggage can reach 120kg, but speed drops at such load.

One Answer

The industry term is shield versus the traditional seals. Rubber seals are usually in at least partial contact with the inner race. Bearing shields (as denoted by the ZZ suffix) do not contact either race, so contamination enters more easily than with a seal.

No bicycle manufacturers that I'm aware of spec bearing shields on any bearings. If you put a ZZ bearing in, it would quickly get contaminated, which would accelerate bearing wear.

Correct answer by Weiwen Ng on August 2, 2021

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