Leather swivel gaiters, anyone made any?

In the next few weeks I will take the Jimmy right of passage and change my swivel bearings as the drivers side got me an advisor on my recent MOT. Sure enough I can move the wheel vertically and feel the movement in the swivel seal, not that bad, but it's time to take action.
I plan to do both sides as both have seen the same 50k, and why not whilst I have the tools out. The swivels both have rusty areas where the seal has rubbed off the finish, I assume this rust stops the seal working effectively, then over time water gets in and it's bye bye bearing. I plan to clean off the rust and paint the swivels with POR15 which is as hard as glass when it's sets, so this should last another 50k (maybe).

Coming from a Land Rover background changing the swivel raiko bush is the same right of passage, but you can fit leather (or military rubber) gaiters to protect the chrome swivels from damage. Just wondering if anyone has considered similar to protect the Jimmy swivels and extend the life of the seal?
I may just have a go at making some, but just wondering if such a product exists or is actually needed.

I suspect this may divide opinion as it does in the Land Rover world, but see the potential benefit on a predominantly road based vehicle.

Landrover swivels are a different design. The CVs are oil immersed (although the oil is normally replaced with grease so it doesn't leak out so quickly). They rely on the polished surface and good seal to keep the lubricant in.
Jimny swivels do not use the same kind of lubrication, so a perfect sealing surface is not important. As Lambert says, the role of the seal on a jimny is merely to keep big stuff out. Changing kingpin bearings is a 45 minutes job once you've done a couple so I wouldn't invest too much time trying to prevent the inevitable.
Although the Landrover system potentially has a longer service life, the weak CVs are prone to failure and the process of changing them is much harder and made very unpleasant thanks to the presences of vast amounts of greasy sludge as you may well know. Fixing a Jimny is like playing with lego in comparison.

Thanks, interesting.
I do see the problem myself with gaiters if you "off road" in muddy water etc as they fill up with mud which gets trapped inside, so my Land Rover does not have them fitted for this reason. But if the vehicle spends it's days "on road" with the gaiters fitted with drain holes at the bottom I just see them preventing stone damage and rust on the swivels which could be good step in preventing bearing failure.

I am assuming the swivel bearings usually fail due to rust and or dirt ingress as they look more than up to the job from a design view. So maybe this is the question, what causes them to fail?

It's not a problem for me to change them, quite looking forward to it, but just over thinking it as I do.

I essentially agree with Lambert's conclusions.

The cheapest, fastest and most effective method for prolonging the service life of the king pin bearings is to coat them in the most resilient waterproof and everything-proof grease which you can find.
I and some other people have had excellent experience with Divinol Fett Top 2003 grease. That is a sludge from another galaxy.


It is pointless to try to redesign a cheaply designed mechanical system. It's ultimately cheaper to apply a sane protection measure (good grease) and just replace the bearings when they inevitably do wear off.
Mercedes G class has a much, much more robustly designed front wheel swivel housing system (for example, the CV joint is encased in a double rubber boot), and that's one of the reasons why that vehicle is the most expensive 4WD vehicle in the world.

Thanks all, I have put my leather scissors back in the box.