Patent ID: 8641288

Claim:
A radial needle bearing, comprising: a thin-walled outer needle sleeve having radial rims that are axially inwardly directed at both ends of the needle sleeve; a plurality of bearing needles rolling on an inner circumferential surface of the needle sleeve and on an outer circumferential surface of a shaft to be supported; a needle cage, which guides the bearing needles in a circumferential direction in an evenly spaced manner; a thrust washer inserted into the needle sleeve so as to be adjacent to the needle cage and limit axial mobility of the needle cage together with one of the radial rims; and a sealing element arranged at least between the thrust washer and another of the radial rims for sealing off the radial needle bearing, wherein the sealing element is a labyrinth seal having two individual mutually engaging sealing rings that have complementary profile cross-sections, and wherein a first sealing ring of the two sealing rings has a plurality of spacing bosses distributed on individual annular surfaces of the first sealing ring that face a second sealing ring of the two sealing rings, to form a uniform sealing gap between the two sealing rings.