Ok to use a needle to go through edge of seal to put grease in bearing?

[Spiderman]

I replaced the drive line bearings and I see the one jackshaft bearing is tight but could use a little grease. If I use a needle to sneak grease in the edge of the seal will it work and seal back up ok?

 

[Spiderman]

I found you can drill a hole carefully and seal with silicone. The chaincase bearings seem like they get washed out by the chaincase oil because the seal isn't that tight so I don't know if it matters how much greese is in those.

 

[wrtmani]

It's been my experience that the needles don't work all that well. You have to pull the edge of the seal away from the lip of the bearing race (either the inner or outer race) to get the needle in. Even with a fine point needle this distorts the seal and allows dirt in anyway, defeating the purpose of the seal.

If a bearing is meant to be greased it will already have a hole drilled in the outer race and a grease zerk (either a greasable flange or a zerk in say a cast bearing housing) that will position that zerk over the hole to allow grease to enter the bearing.

 

[Spiderman]

I was told the zerk at the speedo basically just lubes the key in the speedo by the polaris shop. The drive bearing has holes in the outer race so does it get greese from the speedo zerk at all? Both bearings in the case were totally washed out but in good shape from the chaincase oil. The seal on the new chaincase bearings are the same way (polaris bearings) not very tight and seem like they will get washed eventually too.

 

[The Bob]

The Polaris IQR has a couple sealed bearings, that will only last about half the season if riding hard. We do as you mentioned above, drill a small hole just big enough to get the needle in. Then wipe clean and apply silicone to seal it up, get much more life this way.