Electric Skateboard Maintenance

Maintenance Series. Blog 1. Electric Skateboard Maintenance. How to swap your electric skateboard wheels

This is the first in a series of maintenance blogs and videos we will be posting to help you look after your electric skateboard.

How to swap your electric skateboard wheels

This is perhaps the easiest part of electric skateboard maintenance and this short post gives you all the information you need.

The first thing to do is take your skate tool and remove the wheel nut.  Its easiest if the electric skateboard is upside down for this. The wheel nut is known as a locking nut and has a nylon bush which helps to stop it loosening with vibrations. Take this nut off and remove the washer behind it.

The washer separates the nut from the bearing with the correct spacing and helps to distribute the pressure of the nut evenly over the centre of the bearing. It’s important to have a washer on both sides of the wheel.

Remove the wheel and take off the washer from the other side of the wheel. This washer keeps space between the truck and the bearing. Sometimes it can be stuck on the bearing so keep an eye out before dropping it.

It’s always best to give the washers a good clean and check they aren’t worn unevenly or sometimes they may have snapped.

Take your cleaned or new washer and pop it back on the truck, then take your new or replacement wheel and slide it on. Its easiest to do this with the truck in a vertical position as the bearing spacer isn’t always central inside the bearings. If you want more info on changing bearings then head to our video call, you guessed it ‘How to change bearings’.

Once the wheel is on give it a quick spin to check its running central and that the bearings are spinning freely. Add the 2^nd washer on and finally the locking nut. Its best to tighten the nut while the wheel is spinning so you can easily tell if you over tighten it. The wheel should spin freely and smoothly. Too tight and you risk damaging the bearing although they are extremely strong.

That’s all there is to it really. Of all the steps of electric skateboard maintenance this one is by far the easiest and you should have no trouble.

Check out our range of wheels here