Keep your Rockets clean ! The internal clearance of your bearings is .0003-.0005” . It won’t take much dirt and contamination to slow your bearing down. The Rockets with its Special Labyrinth Inner Ring/Seal design will keep your bearings cleaner and lasting longer than any other 608 bearings out there. However, the oil will run out and the bearing will get dirty over time. As soon as you hear you’re bearings making any noise, not spin freely, or gets wet. STOP ! Don’t continue to use the bearings. Don’t rotate dirty bearings. You are now due to clean and relubricate your bearings. I relubricate mine after every 50 hours of riding. The oil will run out usually before the Rockets get dirty. Your bearings must be kept clean and lubricated to keep them alive ! How long the bearings last depend on you.
Method:
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Carefully remove the non-contact seal with a bent paper clip or something similar. The paper clip must be small enough to fit between the cage and outer race. Push the seal out with the end of the paper clip or tool from the opposite side of the seal by sliding the tool through the opening between the ball cage and the outer ring. The seal should pop-out easily. Be careful not to bend seal. Seal must stay straight. Extra Seals have been supplied with your bearings in case the seal does get bent or torn. Always re-install the seal on the Open Ball side of the cage, and install 1 seal only for ease of cleaning and lubricating later. -
It is not necessary or recommended to completely disassemble bearing. Your Rockets have a special ball cage with special clearances that can be damaged when removing the ball cage. I recommend NOT removing the ball cage and balls. You can clean the bearings just fine with the bearing “open”. -
Soak your bearings in your cleaning solution. What solution…Good question and a lot of people have opinions. Unlike most cleaning instructions I’ve seen for bearings, I will not use anything but solvents. Environmental people may not like to hear that but I’m concerned what is best for the bearing! DO NOT use Water based cleaners, detergents, Citrus base cleaners or WD40! Some of these aqueous type cleaners use “surfactants” to clean the bearings. Surfactants and penetrates can hurt the “wet ability” of the steel, not allowing oil and grease to stick to the surface of the steel properly. I recommend using kerosene or mineral spirits as a Preliminary wash. Don’t use Isopropyl Alcohol for your initial wash however we are going to use it later. With kerosene and mineral sprits the bearings can even be soaked overnight if needed, however, with low concentration Alcohol 70%, left overnight, bearing could rust. Soak bearings for at least a few minutes at least to give Solvent a chance to dissolve the dirty lubricant and contaminants. I like using a little Stainless Steel Strainer with one or two bearing at a time and “dunk” them and “agitate” them in the solvent. Try to skim on top and let oil/dirt fall to bottom. Repeat process in clean solvent in new container. After bearing is completely clean and free of foreign matter switch over to the Isopropyl Alcohol, the higher the concentration the better. The sole purpose of the Alcohol will be to “Rinse” the bearings and remove all “solvent residue”. This step is important to assure the surface of the steel is ready for the lubricant. Shake or agitate the bearings in the Alcohol, remembering not to leave in Alcohol for very long. No soaking is required at this point. The Alcohol should evaporate and leave you a “bone dry” bearing. Use a blow dryer and make sure bearing is COMPLETELY dry and cooled down before adding lube. This is very important. -
Do not wash seals in solvent. Very carefully wipe seal down with a little alcohol on a lint free rag if necessary. Replace the seal making sure it seats in the inner and outer ring grooves. -
Add 2 Drops of Rocket Propellant Skate Lubricant or Equivalent Oil. Use Grease if you are only going to sidewalk skate. Only add enough grease to fill three ball pockets.
