550 - 800 swap mid ship bearing

[bobby.b.]

Hey guys, new to the forum. I have an old 440 that I put an 800 pump and engine into with the Rhaas kit maybe 2-3 years ago. Probably have put 10-20 hours on the set up, went to run it after sitting since last summer the other day and it cranks slow sounds crunchy when cranking and and howls when you run it. took the pump off to verify and the mid bearing has already failed. I use the machine in salt water and religiously bathe everything in 656 after each run. I just had to replace the original mid bearing on my 95 1100 Yamaha maybe 3 summers ago and I put hundreds of hours on that thing every year!

So, does anyone make a better quality part that will last in salt water or am I stuck with the one from rhaas? also does anyone make one that's on rubber like the oems use its much more forgiving when doing the alignment and saves the bulkhead some strain, I don't see the advantage for urethane here.

Not trashing rhaas to be clear the kit is a great value for what it does and works great, was easy to install. I was just surprised to see that bearing fail so quickly.

 

[kevbo]

Kawasakis rarely cause a problem since the shaft does not rock as much as Yamahas. Replace the bearing and seals and make sure everything is greased, they usually last many years..

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Who knows what bearings are used in the his kit, but regardless of bearing mfg what I have found on sealed bearings is that they are not always greased that well from the factory and the grease they use isn't always of high quality , I have seen this a lot on ATV wheel bearings, what we used to do was pop the seals out of the bearings and repack them with Bel-ray saltwater-proof grease before installing the bearings, the seals just pop out using a pick or a small screwdriver, repack the bearing and pop the seals back in, we found this simple mod at least doubled the life expectancy of the bearings.

 

[Storbeck]

Very likely if you look at the bearing it will have a standard trade size molded onto the seals on the side. Something like 6005 or some four digit number starting with a 6. You can go buy a bearing of that size from any place that is convenient for you (local parts store, amazon, mcmaster, wherever). This bearing is very lightly loaded and will never wear out, corrosion is what will kill it. A higher quality bearing will not be more corrosion resistant, best bet is to do what WFO said, pack it good and full of grease.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

I would suggest checking the alignment of those couplers closely upon reassembly, BTW you cannot do that with the rubber dampener in place , it tends to pull stuff into alignment when it's actually not in alignment.

 

[bobby.b.]

Good poop. I guess I'll take it out and see if there's a mark on the bearing. It probly has no grease in it, I never checked it when I installed it.