For the Heavy Duty truck market, there is an option to use pre-adjusted wheel bearing sets with spacers or conventional wheel bearing sets.

Pre-Adjusted sets are typically used with a spacer setup. We get the question “Can a technician use a conventional bearing set with a spacer in place of a pre-adjusted set”. Short answer is “No”. This is because the pre-adjusted bearings (and races) that are used with spacers have been manufactured to achieve extremely tight front face stand height tolerances. This allows for proper endplay setting for the lifetime of the spacer setup, without the need for manual adjustment. Proper end play setting cannot be achieved with using conventional bearing sets with a spacer setup.

Pre-Adjusted Commercial Vehicle Wheel-End Kits consist of two tapered roller bearings with matched outer races and a heavy duty cone spacer.

This technical tip was sponsored by Bower Heavy Duty Bearings by NTN.