Skate PSA: Why you should use bearing spacers (and truck washers) on your skateboard

i wanted to do a quick video to talk to you guys about this innocuous little device and you're probably wondering what this is what it is is a bearing spacer so if you guys are like me back when i started skating as a teenager i didn't understand the point of these things or of these things these are bearing axle washers and so being a guy who liked to simplify things i just got rid of stuff like that and i would just stick my two bearings on without any washers and without a spacer and i wrote like that for many years and then after ripping the inner core out of a wheel just to show you here the inner core is this area in the middle that surrounds the hole but is not the wheel uh if you do a lot of lateral slides where you slide sideways like i like to um it does put stress on that part of the wheel but if you don't use bearing spacers it puts more of it because what happens is there's nothing to keep these bearings and the sideways pressure they're feeling from moving against that more and so that can be a problem for the longevity of your wheels number one number two um i'm going to show you here with a tool how you can tighten these down pretty snugly okay so these are crank down all the way and my bearings have logos on them so you can see they still spin freely but what happens is because of these your axle washers and because of your bearing spacer you have everything on your axle that rotates connected as a single unit so you have the truck the washer which presses against the truck and presses against the inner race the inner race being this inner ring on your bearing that's the inner race as opposed to the outer race out here so you have the inside of the axle pressing against the washer pressing against the inner race pressing against the bearing spacer pressing against the other inner race pressing against the washer which presses against the nut and when the nut is locked down snugly all of these things are forced to rotate actually let me let me rephrase that when you have it locked down with a nut the only thing that rotates or should rotate primarily is the bearing why is that important i mean as long as you roll what difference right that's what i used to think but the difference is if you don't have this system locking your inner races together and forcing the bearing to rotate around them what can happen is the inner race itself can rotate around the axle and then you're not using your bearings efficiently and it can create drag because they're turning a little bit around the inner race but the race is slipping as well which creates drag creates friction on your axle can potentially create heat issues and it doesn't make the most effective use of your bearing and also to get your wheels to spin freely now you have to loosen your truck bolts so that they spin freely and then sometimes you have your wheel jiggling back and forth and your board rattles which is one of the most irritating things to me to have a skateboard setup that rattles like a bunch of loose junk so not a lot of people know this it's just a little public service announcement i wanted to do because the prevalence of people not using spacers is so great today that a majority i would say of bearing companies do not even supply them you have to purchase them separately if at all and so most people don't even use them and most good truck companies will provide a pair of uh washers with their trucks which you can see this grind king set has i'm trying to get them to separate a little bit so you can see them see these these grind kings came with a pair of washers on each side but uh with the exception of this is a bronson speedco set that came with spacers and washers incidentally extra ones came with eight bearings eight washers and four spacers except for these and like the better bones bearings like bones swiss and a few of their other models a lot of the more budget priced bearings today don't even come with spacers or washers so you can get by without using them but you're not going to have the most effective or the most efficient role and the other thing that this does is it it not only forces your bearings to to rotate as a bearing but it lets you know when it's time for them to be cleaned because they'll start to slow down or get seized up and then you know you need to kind of take them apart and clean them i like to use just regular rubbing alcohol with the i got the bones bearing wash system the little jar put them on a stick and put a regular rubbing alcohol in there it's perfectly good solvent there's other things you can use and you shake them around let them soak for a little bit and then you kind of pour them out dry them on a paper towel it's easy to to dry them out it's and it's important to dry them out and then you add like a drop of berry and oil into or a couple drops into each bearing and you're good to go until next time you put the covers back on away you go and you know that is something that you should just be doing as part of regular maintenance on your skateboard to keep your bearings rolling smoothly so i hope this helps you guys out i'm not not sure how many people are actually going to google this topic but if somebody does maybe they'll see this video and understand why you should use bearing spacers on your skateboard um thanks for checking in have a great day guys and godbless skate safe later

Channel: Prodigal Jess

Views: 16,106

Keywords:

Id: S-00e5ARyHk

Length: 9min 24sec (564 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 05 2021