MBS Bearings

MBS Kingpin Bearings [Left], MBS Wheel Bearings [Right]

A post that reveals how infrequently I clean my board, and a weird manufacturing decision by MBS.

I recently decided to change my wheel bearings. A couple of them were showing signs of rust and I hadn't touched them for approximately 2 and a half years. They are relatively cheap to buy and having shopped around, found that they are cheaper to buy straight from a mountain board shop, ATBSports for example (£10, £0 p&p), than to buy from a dedicated bearing shop (£2.50 each +p&p, and remember 8 are required, two per wheel).

Generally, half of the bearings were in reasonable condition with no signs of rust and still suitably lubed, whilst the other half had seen better days but I'll keep hold of and maybe clean/lube if I get a spare day.

I popped in the new ones with the intention of using the old, but good ones to replace the less than great kingpin bearings. These up till now had been slowly deteriorating but if they ever failed, I reasoned that this would be much less of an issue than if a wheel bearing seized up on me.

It was this point that it became obvious that there was a problem - although similar, the wheel bearing are actually approximatley 2mm bigger than the kingpin bearings and will therefore not fit in the Matrix Top Hanger and with a larger diameter core so that the kingpin would wobble if fitted.

Kingpin bearings to fit the MBS Matrix Top Hanger can be bought (ATBSports for example, £10 for 4) but check the sizes just in case!

Point of this is, I don't know why MBS chose to use two similar but not interchangeable bearings, so if you are thinking of stripping down the MBS Matrix Top Hanger, make sure you have the correct bearings before you do!

Edit: Edited for accuracy