Modern Vespa

Hey, I've got an Piaggio LT 150 that I'm regreasing the bearings while I have the fork off. Does anyone know what kind of grease I should put on the bottom and top races?

Thanks!
Eric

water-proof bearing grease - get it from a motorcycle or bicycle shop.

Hmmmm, do you really want to do that?

The reason I say that is I did the same believing my bearings were 'dry' after removing the fork on my ET, years ago.

What I discovered is the bearings have this uber-stiff grease, that provides some resistance to movement.

After repacking with super slippery synthetic bearing grease my steering had no resistance left to right, no big deal, it didn't affect handling but caused the headset to flop around when getting it up on the center stand and such.

Maybe a Vespa tech can chime in as this is all anecdotal, even though first hand, but I do believe there is some kind of 'special sauce' used on headset bearings on Piaggio products

Er - surely there shouldn't be any resistance in the bearings? I always make sure mine can 'flop' as you describe. Any sign of stiffness shows the bearings are too tight and will fail prematurely.

Standard high-performance synthetic grease for me - currently Silkolene Pro RG2.

yeah, I really didn't have a choice for the bottom bearing...that one just came off when I removed the fork (its bent). The top one has the super sticky-gooey stuff and the bottom has the slick fast races. I'm tempted to keep the top one on...but I figure if I have it off, then maybe its a good idea to do that now.

most auto parts stores sell Bearing grease and should be fine.

Super sticky gooey stuff, that's the one.

If Piaggio put that on the top and go fast slick on the bottom, it seems that they thought it important to use two types.......

Who knows, maybe it's there as a steering wobble damper.

My bearings were not over tight it's just that the grease was a very high viscosity, almost like tar.

Everyone can flop away to their hearts content, as I do now on the ET, but I don't think it's factory spec.

yeah, Marc its close to tar, but maybe closer to a thick Vaseline.

Does anyone have an idea for what to use for something like that? I wouldn't mind it being flip floppy but I kind of like the idea of keeping whatever they originally put on there. Does anyone know what they would use in contrast to a white lithium based grease. This one is greenish grey and it makes it almost difficult to pull the top of the race off of it because of how sticky the grease is.

The bike is six years old and only has 2500 miles on it....can I get away with keeping the grease in the top race?

It's like tar because it's old grease. You do not need tar-like grease. If you can buy some - it'll be very, very old grease in a bad container.

Use new good-quality grease.

So then, why is the bottom race so drastically different? It had a layer of dirt on top of the grease, but it was a bright white underneath and seemed like definitely a different grease. The top one on the other hand has casing around it (to keep dirt from getting in) and had this drastically different color/viscosity.

I am just a little incredulous that I should be using the same grease on both the top and bottom because of the fact that it looks like two different greases with two varied properties.

I mean if its old I want to replace it but the question is if I should just use the standard white lithium stuff or if its a special high viscosity stuff?

The bottom bearing has taken all the load - the top bearing has had no load, the grease just dries up. Normal.

Dude, you're getting good advice. Jimc knows what he's talking about.

Buy some good bearing grease and be done with it.

Yeah, Jimc's last answer made sense. I cleaned up the top race and bought some grease. Thanks for dealing with my questions about it. Two people giving contrasting advice is a little confusing.