Montana Owners Club - Keystone Montana 5th Wheel Forum - View Single Post - Montana Axles

sreigle · 01-24-2005, 08:51 AM

Cjleines, if the topic line is a clue, yours is a 2003. Thus you have the Alko-Kober axles, like ours.

If your tires are properly inflated, you are not overloaded on the axles, and you experience severe tire wear on the inside tread, then you may have an axle alignment problem. We had that and Keystone had Alko-Kober replace them for us.

I'd like to pass on a lesson we learned the hard way. Make sure you have identical tires on both ends of the axle. I know this relates to load range and tire size but I'm not sure about tread pattern. Our Montana came with load range D tires, which do meet the weight specs in the size ours uses. When we needed a replacement tire on the road in a location where there was no Goodyear dealer I bought a used tire in the same size but load range E. Since our spare was quite worn on the inside tread I had this used tire mounted on the axle. I later learned this causes a different drag on that end of the axle and eventually caused that axle to go out of alignment. We paid $150 to have both axles re-aligned. This applies not to Alko-Kober axles but to all RV axles, as I understand it. We've only put about 2k miles on the Montana since then so it's hard to tell for sure but the tires seem to be wearing well. Time will tell just how well. If your axles are a problem you'll likely see abnormal wear by the 2k miles mark, to some noticeable degree.

As for the ultra-lube, I'm convinced now that my dealer is correct when he told me 'two squirts per year' even when fulltiming. I put four in ours and when we had him check the brakes this past summer he told me I'm overgreasing and reiterated the two squirts per year. Much more than that and you do risk blowing out the rear seal and getting grease on the linings and drums. The tendency is to think more is better but in this case, two squirts per year. I've become a believer in this and will give it two squirts per year and check the brakes every other year. The dealer repacked the bearings at the same time he did the brakes.

By the way, after about 20k miles the brake linings were only half worn. The linings did have heat stress cracks and the magnets were severely worn and had to be replaced. The dealer told me I had the brakes set too aggressively. I had the Prodigy set at about 8.0. I backed that off to 7.0 and found stopping power just about as good and hopefully not damaging the magnets and linings.

01-24-2005, 08:51 AM	#5
sreigle Montana Master Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Oceanside Posts: 20,028 M.O.C. #20	Cjleines, if the topic line is a clue, yours is a 2003. Thus you have the Alko-Kober axles, like ours. If your tires are properly inflated, you are not overloaded on the axles, and you experience severe tire wear on the inside tread, then you may have an axle alignment problem. We had that and Keystone had Alko-Kober replace them for us. I'd like to pass on a lesson we learned the hard way. Make sure you have identical tires on both ends of the axle. I know this relates to load range and tire size but I'm not sure about tread pattern. Our Montana came with load range D tires, which do meet the weight specs in the size ours uses. When we needed a replacement tire on the road in a location where there was no Goodyear dealer I bought a used tire in the same size but load range E. Since our spare was quite worn on the inside tread I had this used tire mounted on the axle. I later learned this causes a different drag on that end of the axle and eventually caused that axle to go out of alignment. We paid $150 to have both axles re-aligned. This applies not to Alko-Kober axles but to all RV axles, as I understand it. We've only put about 2k miles on the Montana since then so it's hard to tell for sure but the tires seem to be wearing well. Time will tell just how well. If your axles are a problem you'll likely see abnormal wear by the 2k miles mark, to some noticeable degree. As for the ultra-lube, I'm convinced now that my dealer is correct when he told me 'two squirts per year' even when fulltiming. I put four in ours and when we had him check the brakes this past summer he told me I'm overgreasing and reiterated the two squirts per year. Much more than that and you do risk blowing out the rear seal and getting grease on the linings and drums. The tendency is to think more is better but in this case, two squirts per year. I've become a believer in this and will give it two squirts per year and check the brakes every other year. The dealer repacked the bearings at the same time he did the brakes. By the way, after about 20k miles the brake linings were only half worn. The linings did have heat stress cracks and the magnets were severely worn and had to be replaced. The dealer told me I had the brakes set too aggressively. I had the Prodigy set at about 8.0. I backed that off to 7.0 and found stopping power just about as good and hopefully not damaging the magnets and linings.