Under extreme conditions, rubber bearings of marine stern shafts will be in a state of poor lubrication, which could cause severe wear and abnormal noise, endangering the stealth and safety of underwater vehicles. In this paper, a self--lubricating bearing material was designed by co-vulcanization method, where the nitrile butadiene rubber (NBR) and liquid NBR (LNBR) as the co-matrix and the microcapsule as the additive, named Powder-NBR/Microcapsule/LNBR (PNML). The scanning electron microscopy and thermalgravimetric analysis showed that microcapsules were well dispersed in the matrix, and the co-matrix was thermodynamically compatible. The “block-on-ring” friction test was carried out using a tribological test machine with a high-precision vibration acceleration sensor, where the ring material was composed of ZCuSn10Zn2. The results showed that the PNML had significantly lower coefficient of friction and specific wear rate, up to 84.19 % and 73.08 %, respectively, compared to the composite Matrix-NBR/LNBR (MNL) without microcapsule. The analysis of the vibration signals demonstrated that the MNL generated strong vibration and noise during friction, while the total vibration acceleration level of the PNML was reduced by 61.44 dB, as well as the line spectra and broadband noise (3300–5700 Hz) were nearly eliminated. In addition, the mechanical properties of composite were basically maintained. The findings in this study expanded the application scope of self-lubricating microcapsules, providing ideas for the design of rubber bearing materials with engineering application prospects.