How to lubricate a skateboard Bearings? A Complete guide

A lot of people love skateboarding, and they have fun doing this. Everyone knows that skateboarding is done on the roads, and the roads are not free from dirt. Especially in the winters, the streets are covered by salt, water, and funky grit. Then dirty skateboard will not work properly.

You can skate in every weather if you clean them properly after some use. The skateboard is connected with the help of skateboard bearings through which you can clean it easily. If your skateboard bearings are clean, they will work out quickly because they cause the skateboard wheels to move.

The ball bearings are interconnected with skateboard bearings, so if you want to take complete advantage of your skateboard for a long time, maintenance is the key. Regularly, it would help if you lubricated your skateboard bearing shields. Otherwise, you have to disassemble your skateboard to deep clean your bearings.

In this case, most of the skaters ask the question of how to lubricate skateboard bearings. Don’t worry, and it is very easy to lubricant your skateboard bearings. You can drip a few drops of lubricant daily, but you have to clean them properly for dirty skateboard bearings.

We are here to aid and guide you in cleaning your dirty skateboard bearings to get the fast ride on the skateboard for the next time. There are some steps that you have to follow for proper and deep cleaning of your skateboard. Without wasting any time, let’s move towards it quickly! Check out our buyer guide best electric skateboards.

Steps to follow:

• Remove the wheels of your skateboard
• Remove bearings and shields
• soaking bearing shields in cleaner
• Dry bearing and again use lubricant
• Replace shields and place bearing

Materials You need to clean your bearings:

first of all, before removing and dissembling your skateboard, gather the materials you need for cleaning skateboard bearings. It would help if one also had some tools for removing the ball bearings dry rage. Here we provide you the list of things you need, so go and collect them first.

List of things:

• bearing lubricant
• A hardware tray
• Skate tool or a wrench
• safety pin or razor blade
• toothbrush or rag
• bowl for solvent
• Solvent (Acetone solution)

Step No 1:

Removing the wheels of the skateboard:

in the deep cleaning process, the first step is to remove the wheels from the skateboard. Start the process by untightening the axle nuts with the help of a skate tool, and if you don’t have it, you can use the wrench for removing.

Carefully remove the wheel outward from the truck axle nuts. During this, ensure that washers keep their track between axel & bearings and axle nuts. Now use the hardware tray to keep the axle nuts and speed washers to avoid losing them.

Step No 2:

Removing skateboard bearings and bearing shield:

Once wheels are removed from the skateboard, it is time to move towards the most important step of cleaning. Now you will remove the skateboard bearings, and you have to pay special attention during this step to be done. Remove the bearing spacers from wheels by using an axle truck.

For this purpose, you require to slide the wheel halfway onto the axle’s end to keep only one bearing on the axle. When the axle strongly catches the inside bearing, you have to twist the wheel in the outward direction and take the skateboard bearing out. Repeat this process for every skateboard bearing.

Now, this is the time to pop up the bearing shields from the skateboard bearing. There are two types of shields used in the skateboard bearing spacers mostly; metal shields and rubber shields. Both of them can be popped out easily by using a safety pin or straight staple for sure.

When you start removing the bearing shields, carefully pop them without bending or breaking them because you have placed them again after the cleaning. For removing shields, stick the sharp pin between the bearing race and ball cage of the skateboard and press it to seal out.

If your skateboard bearing has a metal shield, carefully aim the center; otherwise, you will puncture it. They are way easier to remove than rubber shields. Place your pin beneath the circlip edge, and it will be out in a second. place all of the bearing shields in the hardware tray.

Step No 3:

Soaking bearing in the cleaner:

In this step, you will make a cleaner, and then the skate bearing will be soaked in it for some time. However, deep cleaning is time-consuming it well worth it once you completely clean your skateboard. Take a bowl and fill it with the solvent you have. Isopropyl alcohol, acetone, and mineral spirits are preferred.

In the bowl, fill the solvent and place the bearings in it for some time. It is advised to make the solvent and place the skate bearings in it by wearing gloves, and don’t try to touch the skin while performing this step. Once you place the bearings in a solvent, they will sit down.

Then after some time, you can take an old toothbrush for little scrubbing of the soaked bearing for proper cleaning. On the other hand, you can swirl the bowl to remove the dirt from the bearing. You can use bearing cleaners available in the market, which are mess-free and damage-free.

Step No 4:

Drying the bearings:

After making your skateboard’s wheels bearings clean from dirt or grit, now you have to place them at a clean place to dry rage. You can clean the skate bearings by using a paper towel and then make them spin to check whether they work out well or not.

They can be dried by using a blow-drier. After cleaning skate bearings, you can also clean the skate shields by placing them in the left solvent. Repeat the same process for cleaning eight bearings shields.

Step No 5:

Re-lubricant the skate bearings:

If you place the dried bearing without using lubricant, it will cause damaging friction, leading to destroyed bearings. That’s why it is highly preferred to use a skate-specific bearing lubricant to grease them properly. Bearing lubricant is available in the market easily.

Now, put one to two drops of lubricant to lube skate bearings and then try to spin them so that the motor oil will evenly distribute. You should repeat this process for all of the eight bearings. If you don’t have a specially designed lubricant, you can use lithium grease, molybdenum grease, etc.

Step No 6:

Placing the shields in skate bearings:

once you grease your bearings, now it’s time to properly place the shields back into the bearings. This time, the shields will be easily placed inside the bearing because they are lubricated. You can use oil instead of grease for lubricating the shields.

It can be olive oil or even cooking oil. Sewing machine oil can be used. Use only two drops of any oil, and you are done. It will keep any type of shield away from rusting. Then place them in the high-quality bearings.

Step No 7:

Mounting bearings back in the wheels:

last but not least step is to place those bearings in back into the wheels so that you can again use your skateboard outside. Place the bearings back into the wheel by using tools and roll them for once to check their performance.

After placing the bearings on the wheels, take your first ride, and you will feel a huge difference between dirty and clean bearings in the skateboard for sure. It is advised to make sure that you have placed the spacers between the bearings before mounting them into the wheels. Don’t forget to place the speed washers on the truck axle.

Tips for better cleaning:

1. Most of the time, people become confused whether they should clean skateboard wheels or bearings. But always keep in mind that one has to clean bearings for proper working.
2. If you have longboard wheels, then don’t worry. They have the same bearings as a skateboard. It means that you can use these steps for them as well.
3. Before cleaning the bearings, make sure about which type of shields your skate’s bearings have; metal or rubber.
4. Cleaning metal shields with the method mentioned above will limit its life. Cleaning through this process will be helpful.
5. Bearing spacers are used in some skates, especially in the longboards, so keep them in a hardware tray while removing bearings.
6. For re-lubricating, please do not use the WD-40 as a lube available in the market because its effects are temporary, and it also does not resist rust. So metal shields will be worn out after using this grease.
7. The proper cleaning process will make your existing bearings look like new bearings, and you can use the bones speed cream for oiling them.
8. Marine grease is good for lubricating the rubber shields of bearings.
9. Though it takes time from 15 minutes to half-hour once bearings are cleaned, you will see a huge difference.
10. If you ride a lot, then try to clean the new bearings almost every month for one once.
11. The cleaning process depends upon that what are the conditions of the streets you ride the skateboard and which type of bearings are used in your skateboard.

Conclusion:

The most asked question is how to lubricate skateboards, and in this article, we have gathered all the available knowledge about all the balls bearings that should be cleaned properly. Following all of the steps, we mentioned above will help you in getting new bearings for sure.

All steps are easy to follow and guide you properly because lubricating and re-lubricating are necessary for skates’ proper cleaning. You don’t need to buy different solvents from the market for cleaning because you can do this process by using bike grease or light oil to roll speed of your skate wheels.

We hope this will help you in this regard.