Skateboard Bearing Spacers - What's the point?

hi welcome back i hope everybody's doing  well some of my most popular videos on   my channel have been about bearings which  is quite a surprise in some respects but   in also others maybe not because there seems to be  an awful lot of perceived mystery around bearings   and just so many questions and an equal  amount of misinformation today's video   is not specifically about bearings  themselves but actually about spaces   some people may have never seen them never used  them never even understand what they're for   and hopefully i can help you with that today but  also one of the main reasons for doing this video   is to try and help people that are having  trouble with spacers or even completely written   them off as an option because they've  had a problem so let's get on with it [Music]   okay bearing spacers they're these  little tiny round cylinders that   go inside your wheels between the two bearings  you may not have ever seen them before because   they don't come with all sets of bearings some  bearing companies supply them some don't some   simply don't seem to believe in them and  others think you should buy them separately so   they're kind of a enigma in themselves in  that you don't always get them and people   don't always understand what they're for or why  you'd even need them in my humble opinion you   should always use spacers because they do serve a  purpose and they work very well when used properly   the biggest problem that i think most people  have with them is getting the right ones for   your wheels and setting them up and that can  cause some frustration in itself and there's a   good reason why a lot of people might just write  them off and just say i don't want them i don't   need them i can put two bearings in my wheels  and my wheel spin that's all i need to know   now i have a few different ones here and i don't  know whether you can see on the camera very well but maybe you can see they are slightly  different diameters and they're not even   always the same kind of length which can be a  big problem in itself now i don't know whether   you can see from that whether you can notice the  difference in length but i'll do some close-up   shots uh just to prove it because you know it's  quite hard to focus on these and my face at   the same time but if we take a look up close we  have one here that is 10 millimeters diameter by 8.5 ish millimeters long we have one that is 10 and a half so 10.5 millimeters diameter  and 10 maybe 0.25 millimeters long and a third one here that is 12.5  millimeters diameter and 10 millimeters   length so three different spaces three different  lengths so it's no wonder that people have trouble   setting up the right ones because the length and  the diameters are both pretty important things so   just to demonstrate that i'll start off with the  diameters and it's perhaps the most noticeable   thing if you look at a skateboard wheel the center  where the spacer will sit in the middle there that   is different on different wheels so i have this  speed lab wheel here and if i take the largest   spacer i have here which is the 12.5 millimeter  diameter and place it in the center of the speed   lab wheel it's almost a snug fit hopefully you can  see that if i put a bit of light behind it maybe   it's a bit more apparent you can just about  see the glow of the light around the outside   so that's almost a snug fit inside the wheel  that's a bad thing we want a lot of clearance for   a spacer in the wheel core the spacer must not  touch the wheel core otherwise it will grip it and   squeak and slow you down that's one problem that a  lot of people have so it's quite possible that you   might have too large diameter for your wheels now  a great example of that is with that same spacer   and a spitfire wheel now if i place that spacer  in the split fire wheel it's completely tight   it's so tight i can't even push it in and so if  these spacers were used on these spitfire wheels   the wheels wouldn't even spin they would  be locked solid and i've seen people online   saying that they've put spaces in their wheels and  suddenly their wheels are very slow that's why the   spacer is gripping the inside of the wheel when we  think about the way a bearing works you have the   axle of your truck now if i just remove the nut  for a second and place a bearing on the axle   and spin the bearing it's the center  of the bearing that needs to stay still   and it's the outside of the bearing that needs to  rotate because the outside of the bearing is fixed   to your wheel so the outside of the bearing  is fixed to your wheel and the wheel rotates   and the inside of the bearing is fixed  to the truck axle and so that allows the   wheel to rotate around the track axle and  the ball bearings inside to actually roll   now some people don't do their truck nuts up very  tight and so to a certain amount the inside of   the bearing is also spinning on the axle and  so you've got almost two places of movement   which some people use as a reason to not do  their wheels up tight because they think that   you know extra rotation is a good thing but  what you're actually doing is wearing out the   inner part of the bearing on the axle and that's  going to wear the axle and prematurely wear your   trucks down and also wear the inside of the  bearing out and metal and metal is not good   and lubricated either and you don't generally  oil or grease the axles so it's not good to   have the bearing rotating on the axle the inside  of the bearing needs to be pinched tight against   the truck and the outside of the bearing  is obviously pinched tight against   your wheel so if you place a spacer in your  wheel and then you put another bearing on top really because the inside of the  bearing is being pinched tight against   the axle when it's done up tight and i'll just  get a skate tool here just to pinch it up tight   so when you pinch up your  wheel nuts properly tight   the bearing spin but the center of the bearing and  the spacer don't they are being pinched very tight   and therefore you don't want your spacer to be  in contact with your wheel because the spacer is   pinched tight so if your wheel is in contact with  the spacer it's going to slow down the wheel it's   going to act like a break on the on the inside of  the wheel and slow you down so you need the right   size spaces for your wheel so if we go back to the  example of the spitfire wheel that 12.5 millimeter   spacer being stuck hard in the center of that  wheel is a really bad idea because the wheel will   be locked solid when we tighten up the truck nut  so if i remove that spacer from the spitfire wheel   and take one of the other spacers and this  time we will go with the 11 millimeter spacer   and put that inside the spitfire wheel and  take a look hopefully you might be able to see   that there is now a gap you see just around the  outside of the spacer you can see light and that   means there is a gap now there's enough of a gap  here it's probably about it's probably about two   millimeter gap all the way around in this wheel  but it is enough to allow the wheel to rotate   without the spacer touching the inner core of  the wheel so these 10.5 11 millimeter spacers   these are good for these spitfire wheels because  they will not grip the inside of the wheel now   if we look at some other wheels so that that speed  lab wheel um you know that that will take these uh   these smaller spaces just fine you know  they can there can be a massive gap   between the spacer and the wheel that's not a  problem the bigger gap the better so i would get   the smallest diameter space as you possibly can  and then you can't go wrong if you get some that   are a bit bigger like these 12.5 millimeter ones  which i actually think are originally designed for   roller skates so steer clear of these larger  ones and just get the smallest ones possible   another set of wheels here these are mini  logo uh bones and again the hole but uh   you can see the gap there so again these mini  logo wheels and these 10.5 millimeter spacers   they're a good match another wheel here is a  santa cruz slime ball and these have a slightly   different inner core but as you can see again the  gap is massive so again these 10.5 ish millimeter   spacers are perfect for these uh slime balls i  also have a couple of uh bones wheels this one   is a bones stf like street tech formula wheel and  again massive great big gap so the small one would   be good i'll just put the large one in there to  show you that actually that is just fine as well   so there's a gap there and this one is an spf  wheel a v5 spf and this much the same there's   a massive gap there for the uh the large spacer  so there's going to be an even bigger gap for the   small spacer so bottom line is the small spacers  win every time so get the smallest diameter you   can that's the black one here so that's the first  issue if you have wheels that feel like they're   squeaking or slowing you down you want to make  sure that you've got the right size spacer and   that there's plenty of gap between the spacer  itself and the wheel core the other important   factor is actually the length now if i go back to  my measurements again the smallest one i have here   i said already i think but this is 8.5 millimeters  long which is quite short this is the small spacer   that suits the wheels best so let's bear that in  mind the 12.5 millimeter spacer is 10 millimeters   deep so that's a quite a chunk longer than the  previous one and then i think we have another   one somewhere in between which is 10 millimeters  long so again bit different now really what effect   the length has is when we look at the bearings  that are placed upon the truck it's this gap here   that the length is uh dictating now why is that  important well when you put your bearings inside   the core of the wheel you can see that the core  of the wheel has a seat for the bearing to sit in   and what's really important is that the length  of the spacer is actually the same length or   longer than the depth of the core so what i'm  going to do is use the end of my calipers here   my vernier calipers just to measure the depth  of these cores so bear with me while i do that okay that first one that's the mini logo wheel  they are exactly 10 millimeters deep let's go   with the speed lab which are exactly  the same they're 10 millimeters deep   let's go with the spitfire they  are 10 millimeters deep bones stf they actually feel like a tiny bit more let's  just double check all right they're 10 millimeters   that's good and the bones spf they are actually  about 9.25 deep let's just try the santa cruz   that's nine millimeters deep so we have a range of   nine to ten millimeters deep okay so what will  happen if we use an 8.5 millimeter long spacer   in a 9 or 10 millimeter deep  core they're gonna rattle around   and that's not good because that means if they're  not touching the bearings if they're rattling   around in between because they're not touching  the bearings because they're being held apart   from the spacer by the wheel core the inner part  of the bearing is never going to touch the spacer   therefore we need spacers that are more than 10  millimeters long that way the bearing will touch   the spacer before the inner core of the wheel  stops it from going any further when you tighten   them down you want the spacer tight against the  inner ring of the bearing and the truck axle   and that's being tightened down by the nut and  that's what allows you to tighten the nut down as   far as you possibly can and have the wheels still  free spinning now i hope that kind of makes some   sense i know it's really hard to explain and get  the idea across but the bottom line is you need   spaces that are a smaller diameter than the inner  core of your wheel with a decent sized gap around   the outside and also longer than the depth of  your inner core so that the bearings touch before   the wheel stops the bearings from touching  when you tighten the nut down now when you   hear all of this it's no wonder that people get  confused or the wrong information or just get fed   up with trying to comprehend what's going on  wheel manufacturers don't make it any easier   bearing manufacturers certainly don't help and  there is no set standard for the size of bearing   spaces or the size of the inner cores of wheels  it's just a minefield and basically people get so   fed up they just don't even bother using them and  of course there's always the people that say i've   been running skateboards for so many years i've  never used spacers and i've never had a problem   fine that's absolutely fine but you cannot  deny when set up properly the bearings will run   at their best there's also the contingent  that just say bearings are cheap i don't   care if i destroy them i'll buy some new  ones when they go that way again that's fine   but when set up properly with a decent set of well  engineered bearings they can last you years and   years there's no reason why they shouldn't okay  just to illustrate and i've shown this quite a   few times on my channel before but you know just  for this video and to prove my point um so i've   got my spitfire formula fours and my bones swiss  bearings and some spacers installed and actually   the bearings need a bit of a clean so they  make a bit of noise but um they spin very well   there's nothing wrong with that um so you know  they're not tight as in uh gripping inside the   wheel and stopping from being spun and  you know i could spin them really hard and they'll spin for plenty of time quite  freely and you know that's there's no real   gauge of how fast the bearings are by spinning  like that because they have to be under load   to spin and get speed anyway but it's just  to show you that they're free spinning   and i've got my skate tool here and  just to sort of prove that the nuts   they are done up as tight as they will go and  they're free spinning so you know those people   that can't tighten their nuts right up because  they don't have spacers in there and this is   proving that point that i was saying where the nut  is squashing down on the inner core of the bearing   which is then squashing down on the spacer  against the inner core of the second bearing   and then down against the truck axle itself  so all of that center line of the two   inner cores of the bearings and the spacer between  them and then you've got the truck hanger and   the nut all of that center line is all tight  nothing is rotating there the only thing that   is rotating are the ball bearings inside the  bearing race which allows the wheel to rotate   so that's just to highlight exactly what is  going on with with my wheels and i'll just   take them apart to show you just to prove  the point so let me loosen that nut off   i need to clean my bearings anyway so they've  got to come off so there's that nut there's my   first speed washer and the speed washers are super  important as well because they allow the nut to   sit on the inner ring of the bearing quite flat  and nice you don't necessarily want to put the nut   straight down on the center core of the bearing  you can but it's always better to have a washer   on there so i take the wheel off and there's  another speed washer on the axle there just to   be a flat mounting point on the axle because the  axles aren't always 100 flat so you put a washer   on there and then it at least makes it flatter  so there's that and i just pop my bearings out   just twist it off the axle there and there you go  spacer dropped out but there's uh one bones swiss   uh these are the big ball big ball swiss bearings  so that's one one bearing and the spacer and then   there's another bearing inside so i could put them  back on and reverse and tighten them up and just   show you that uh you know there's nothing weird  going on i'm not making things up this is how   they are you know so bearing on spacer on wheel  on nice and tight seat it properly speed washer put the nut on and tighten them down tighten  the nut down as far as it will go fairly tight set fully tight and it spins  so uh that's that's exactly and then it spins and just make sure that they're properly  properly home there you go spins perfectly so uh yeah just need to give them a clean to stop  that rattling but there's no no lateral movement   they don't rattle backwards and forwards so uh  they're as tight as they'll go and that's how   a properly set up wheel with bearing spacers in  uh is supposed to be anyway i appreciate that's a   hell of a lot of very geeky information to try and  absorb and it just may be not even worth your time   trying to deal with it which is fine but i've  not seen another video online that attempts to   explain this so i thought i'd do this video just  to explain and at least there's some information   out there if you found it useful or interesting  let me know in the comments if you've got any   questions again let me know in the comments  i'm happy to help people who are struggling   or need to know some more information until next  time thanks for watching take care do me a favor   just leave a like if you found it useful and  i'll see you again soon thanks for watching [Music] bye

Channel: Neil Hester - Skateboarding

Views: 8,144

Keywords: Bearing Spacers, skateboarding, Skating, Skate, Mid life Crisis, Old Skateboarder, Skateboarder, How To, bearing spacers vs no spacers, bearing spacers skateboard, bearing spacers and speed rings, bearing spacers or not, bearing spacers rattling, bearing spacers 8mm, bearing spacers necessary, bearing spacers adn speed rings, skateboard bearing spacers yes or no, Bearing spacers neccesary, Are bearing spacers necessary, skateboard bearings, best skateboard bearings, Skate bearings

Id: M5oV7q3u9so

Length: 22min 17sec (1337 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 24 2021