OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Repairs and Maintenance Questions on Walk Behind Lawn Mower Frames Reel Lawn Mowers, Atco & Villiers etc. Use of sealed (2RS) bearings for mower reel.

Hi all
My Steelfort Lawnmaster 660 reel mower specifies 6203-Z single steel shield bearings for the reel. There are grease nipples to allow this.
But I'm wondering if 2RS sealed bearings would work? I see some Scott Bonnars parts suppliers specify sealed bearings.
Cheers, James

You must remove the inner seals into to grease them; otherwise, you can't grease them. I actually tested them to see if grease would entered them on blade spindle assemblies that Husqvarna started sending them with 2RS bearings and still had grease zerks. When I tested this using a taper cone wheel bearing packer the grease actually crushed the seal on the side I was trying to force grease into. Also the seal which grease pushes against going out can be blown out too if you apply grease too fast.

Now if you don't plan to grease the bearings then the 2RS are fine until the grease dries up then you just replace them again; otherwise, I would just buy the 6203-ZZ bearings and remove the inner seals. Most bearing suppliers here charge extra to stock the single sided sealed or steel shield bearings.

Cheers AVB. Was not planning to grease them. Just use and replace. As you say, sealed 6203's are a lot cheaper than Z or ZZ.

Actually what I meant was single sided sealed or single shielded versions as my bearing distributor here has the same price on ZZ or 2RS. Just note that with 2RS bearings depending where you get them you might want to change out the grease to a high quality grease. The seals is easily popped and reinstalled. I even seen some to have only a little grease in them especially those cheap FleeceBay ones. I tend to pop the seals and add EP2 grease here before I install them.

Personally I don't see any reason to pay extra for having one side open when I can do it here myself.

And as I said got watch out for those ElCheapo bearings. I just replace a pair of 6204-2RS that was installed a couple years ago that actually was rusting internally so they were not as sealed as claimed glad I only brought 10 from Amazon before I found my bearing distributor.

Hello Nincomjool and AVB
AVB is, as always, right about sealed bearings.

My view is, In the modern world, go for quality fully-sealed bearings
on domestic reel mowers. At every re-grind, replace the bearings.

Cheers
-----------------------
Jack

Thanks AVB and Jack, much appreciated!