The stock PL bearings are actually kinda nice in a way. I can't tell if their stainless? A magnet sticks to them but that's not always indicative of being stainless or not. Odd too there is no mention of brand or country of origin.

My stock bearings lasted a decent amount of time; I even repacked them. But they started to have too much bearing howl or roar for my liking. It just felt like they were slowing me down. Like trying to buggy with the brakes on.

So I got some replacement bearings. Just some low cost ones from vxb. I was new to the world of bearings. Bearings are bearings and these are good enough so I thought. And maybe they would have been had they never got wet...

Looks wise if they didn't say vxb.com on the seals they would be an identical replacement for the stock bearings..

When I first installed them; they free wheeled real nice after a spin by hand like new bearings should. They tapped in really easy using a bearing installer on the outer race.

They seemed to ride nice the first few times out. Now I wasn't being too critical or observant of them as far as paying attention to the sound considering they were still "new". Thinking back though; I can't shake the thought of remembering it seemed like they were starting to get loud already(how could they? They were still new..).

Last time out though; I ran over a wicked thorn. So I had to pull a wheel to fix that. That's when I noticed the cracked weld.

But before I did that; I thought to wash off the buggy with the hose. Big mistake and last time I do that. I put the buggy back together and put it back in the vehicle. I don't know how many days passed before I got to ride again. Anyways I get back out to the lake; needed to air up the front tire a little; was going to rotate the stem around. Wheel was seized up. Checked the other two. Same thing.. Took a lot of force to initially rotate it. Then the wheel was notchy, like it was indexing. Wind was mega light so rode anyways. They "seem" normal now. Still though; I like having nicely working bearings. I'll just add these to my collection of "spares".

Got some nice(er?) Nachi bearings on the way:

http://www.vxb.com/page/bearings/PROD/Kit9705

The plain bearings I had:

http://www.vxb.com/page/bearings/PROD/Kit486


An enlightening post I read. Read post number 13:

http://www.silverfishlongboarding.com/forum/longboard-skateb...

If you've got 10 minutes; see what goes into the manufacture of bearings:



I'll report back after the Nachi bearings get here shortly.

Your Peter Lynn did not come with stainless bearings. It came with cheap Chinese bearings.
Austenitic stainless is not magnetic; ferritic and martensitic stainless are magnetic. You could never have an austenitic stainless bearing, it would be far too soft.
I liked the linked article right up until he said he uses a mallet to install a bearing, every machinist I know uses a press, maybe that is why it's called a "press fit". Try using a nut and bolt and some washers to suck the bearings into place instead of tapping.
S
I've never had a problem using the cheap bearings.

I know that if I don't rinse salt water off my bearings on my blades and boards this happens . Never had the issue with tap water ?