MOPED ARMY

I don’t think a moped is capable of it, since they don’t weight much, but I had an old VW that started making intermittent bearing noises on the highway. After a min of me trying to figure out what the sound was, the right front wheel locked up and almost pulled me off the road.

The end result was the race welded onto the spindle. Could have been worse.

I'd replace the bearings and insure that the brakes had clearance .

Repack and properly adjust the bearings, if they are undersize from wear they will not heat up from the wear unless some are out of round and are skidding not rolling. If you replace the balls you should replace the cones and outer race. Variance in the runout (badly adjusted bearing) can allow for brake contact as the wheel can cant slightly. Crappy adjustments can also lead to death wobble if you have your cycle tuned to exceed 50km/h (30mph).

When you reassemble, use a sharpie and 'paint' some stripes on the brake shoes. Disconnect the brake cable for the offending brake and take her up to speed then stop (obviously without using the 'maybe draggy brake') and see if there is any contact. If there is slight contact it gets worst at speed as the shoe heats up and expands and gives more contact. To correct draggy brakes you can give them more clearance within the drum by shaving a very little off the shoe where it contacts the cam. Verify by taking it out again for a goodly run without attaching the brake cable.

When you reattach the brake cable be wary of over adjusting and making the shoe slightly contact the drum again.

If they they are dragging, hanging up or not releasing then there's the problem. Check the brake linkage, shoe cam, return springs and cables for proper smooth action.

When you were spinning the wheels you said they spun smooth. Did you check for side to side movement or slop of the wheels by tugging on one side then the other? When wheel bearings fail they either make noise or get sloppy loose. Sometimes both.

Thanks for all the thoughts on this issue. Upon closer inspection the wheel does not wobble when spinning, but does make some noise. I'm pretty confident the bearings need attention.

Why is it recommended to also replace the cups and cones when replacing bearings? Is it just the assumption that damaged/worn bearings will also mean your cups/cones are damaged/worn too? Replacement bearings are easy to come by, but finding the right cone nut and cup seems a little tricker. I assume I have a Grimeca hub given that it's an Italian bike. Going to have to take some measurements and look closely at Myon's wheels page to find the right components.

They can be too tight also.

clean the bearing and grease it and see if it fixes it. clean and fresh grease can do wonders. never know what you'll find when you look in there through until you look at it.