I’m looking for some general experience and opinions on front wheel bearing longevity on the larger trucks from this era, rather than troubleshooting a specific problem with mine.
The front wheel bearings for my 54 1 1/2 ton truck are pretty scarce. When they do turn up, the prices seem disproportionately high compared with a lot of other parts. That has me wondering how aggressive I should be about hunting down a spare set while I still can.
What’s interesting is that, browsing through the **Big Bolts** forum, I don’t see nearly as many posts about worn-out or failed front wheel bearings as I would expect given how difficult some of these bearings are to find. There are a few discussions, but not many. If these bearings were commonly wearing out, I would think the scarcity would be a much bigger topic.
The bearings in my truck are in very good shape and appear to have plenty of life left in them. Of course, these trucks also live a very different life today than they did when they were working for a living. Most are probably driven relatively few miles and used for shows, cruises, and general hobby use.
So I’m curious what the collective experience has been:
* Do the original-style front wheel bearings in these trucks tend to have an unusually long service life?
* Is that mostly because our trucks see so few miles today?
* Were the bearings themselves particularly well made because of the manufacturing practices, materials, or design of the time?
* Or have those of us still running good original bearings simply been fortunate?
* Has anyone here actually worn out or had to replace front wheel bearings on a Big Bolt through normal use?
I’m not looking to replace good bearings just because replacements are hard to find. I’m mainly trying to decide whether these are the kind of parts where I should grab a good NOS or quality spare set whenever I see one, even at a premium price, or whether properly maintained bearings are likely to outlast the amount of driving most of us will ever put on these trucks.
I’d be interested to hear how many miles people have put on theirs, whether they’re still running old/original bearings, and what condition they’ve found them in when servicing the hubs.
