Peer Bearing Company (USA; 5251R9N7) is rolling out a new line of no-maintenance agricultural bearings with advanced patent-pending seals. For gang disc tillers, they are branded as TILLXtreme.

Disc harrow bearings are high volume sale ag bearings, primarily because they are usually the failure-prone and high-maintenance ag bearings. Due to their general operating environment, disc bearings usually require preventive relubrication, and still have an extremely high rate of seal failure. Tillers are also heavy and unwieldy, making bearing replacement all the more difficult and time-consuming. The high failure rate, coupled with high maintenance requirements make the bearings unpopular with farmers.

The TILLXtreme aims to address those concerns with a maintenance-free design using better sealing and internal relubrication.

Simply by eliminating disk relubrication, Peer said farmers can expect to increase their infield time by up to 25 acres per day.

The patent-pending design combines multiple seal contact with relubrication zones. Peer said mud slurry lab test results show the TILLXtreme goes for more than 1,300 hours before seal failure -- more than quadruple the 300 hour rating for currently available units. Peer's sealing arrangement involves single (F or G), double or triple lip seals, bonded to a thick gauge steel shroud.

Currently, Peer is offering the TILLXtreme in the most popular round bore and square bore sizes. The housings are either trunnion or square pillow block style.

Peer's current lineup of TILLXtreme bearings is interchangeable with C-Arm mount gang discs. The company plans to introduce rigid mount units in the near future.