Hub Bearing "Upgrade"

Hello All , Had my rear wheel off to replace the Freewheel and Chain .. Non Motorized "stock" wheel ...my Motor is in the front .. Felt the Axle and it seemed rough ..Took it apart and sure enough the Bearing "cones" were pitted ..
Going to "rebuild" this one way or another .. I have Measured everything out and it seems I could use Sealed Bearings instead of Ball and cone technology ... I ordered a bunch of parts ..We will see ..Anyone ever heard of this ?? Replacing the Ball and Cone with Press in Sealed bearings ???
Thanks in advance for any help .. I like working on the bike ...Just don't like screwing it
up ... Retired mechanic ..I know lefty loosey righty tighty .. But not much Bike Experience ...

Is that an iMortor?

I have seen a passel of hub motors, but never one with cup and cone bearings.

Even if you can fit cartridge bearings into the seats formerly occupied by the cups, how do you propose to interface the axle with the inner bearing races?

It sounds like he's working on the rear to me?

Not knowing any better myself (another mechanic), if I thought I could replace the cup/cone bearings with sealed, I'd be on that plan in a heart beat. Once and done plans are generally best to my way of thinking....

AHicks said:

It sounds like he's working on the rear to me?

Click to expand...

Ah, that makes more sense.

No, you can't replace cup and cone bearings with sealed cartridges. You replace the cones, balls, and grease. Or you replace the wheel with one that has a sealed bearing hub.

So if you had two bicycles
One bike with caged bearings for headset (Costco fat bike)
The other bike with sealed bearings (Surface 604 Elements)
Can you put the sealed bearing fork on the caged bearing headset?

Chalo said:

AHicks said:

It sounds like he's working on the rear to me?

Click to expand...

Ah, that makes more sense.

No, you can't replace cup and cone bearings with sealed cartridges. You replace the cones, balls, and grease. Or you replace the wheel with one that has a sealed bearing hub.

Click to expand...

markz said:

So if you had two bicycles
One bike with caged bearings for headset (Costco fat bike)
The other bike with sealed bearings (Surface 604 Elements)
Can you put the sealed bearing fork on the caged bearing headset?

Click to expand...

Yes, if you swap the crown race from one fork to the other. Or you could swap the fork and headset together.

if you use a differrent axle that is slightly bigger it is posible to swap out cone and bearings for cartridge. I found that out after accidentaly damaging a cone. i ended up remoiving both cones and bearings leaving a hollow hub. after checking fitment of sealed bearings i used those. i immedeatly noticed the axle bolt was slightly too small leaving some play that would have left the weheel useless. luckily i had another axel from a different bike that would barely go through the bearings and got tight enough to grab inner race and not leave any play.
could have been dumb luck, i dont know, i just know i got it to work. i havent yet put that bike back into service as its waitng an engine swap, but it seems to be a solid fix.