Wheel bearing lubrication - Montana Owners Club

Montana5 · 03-09-2011, 02:23 AM

Thinking of lubing wheel bearings on my 3000RK. It has E-Z lube hubs. The book says the hub needs to be rotated while adding grease. My question is: is it ok to jack up each wheel separately with my pick-up jack to do the lubing?

camper4 · 03-09-2011, 02:30 AM

The best way to grease your bearings is to do it the old fashion way. Pull the wheel, clean and grease the bearings, replace with new seals and remount the wheel.
Those easy lube hubs tend to push grease through the seals causing brake failures. I have those hubs and have had 3 of 4 seals leak and ruin the brake shoes.
Others will give their two cents on this topic too. That's mine.

carlson · 03-09-2011, 02:49 AM

I greased mine per the instructions with no problems. I did jack up one wheel at a time. Any one who saw me probably thought I was nuts. I was sitting on a box with two hands on the grease gun and using one foot hiked in the air continuously turning the wheel the whole time I was (very slowly) pumping the grease in. Pumped until I saw new grease coming out the front.
Tested each brake several months later by again jacking one wheel at a time and pulling the breakaway switch. Each brake locked up right after I tried to turn the wheel.

8.1al · 03-09-2011, 02:51 AM

I have had 2 trailers with the EZ lube. On both I very carefully greased them according to Dexters instructions. On both of them I had grease on the brake shoes. NEVER again will I use those grease fittings.

BB_TX · 03-09-2011, 07:01 AM

Edit: For some reason, my first attempt at a response to this topic came out under Carlson's name. Strange. Site was acting strange at the time. Maybe admin can delete it.

I did lube mine using the EZ lube fittings per the instructions with no problem. And I did jack up one wheel at a time just barely off the ground.
Anyone who saw me probably thought I was nuts. I was sitting on a block of wood using both hands on the grease pump and one foot up in the air keeping the wheel continuously turning while I very slowly pumped grease into the fitting until I saw new grease come out the front.
I checked the brakes a couple months and a couple thousand miles later by again jacking up one wheel at a time, pulling the breakaway switch, and finding that each wheel would lock up after less than a quarter of a turn.
Others apparently have not been as fortunate.

gypsies2 · 03-09-2011, 09:31 AM

Don't use the fittings. Doing it the old fashioned way allows you to check the bearings at the same time. Did mine this way at 10000 km (6000 miles) and found two of the bearings were rough and pitted. They would have failed in a short while!

PapaBeav · 03-09-2011, 12:13 PM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by 8.1al

I have had 2 trailers with the EZ lube. On both I very carefully greased them according to Dexters instructions. On both of them I had grease on the brake shoes. NEVER again will I use those grease fittings.

I'm with you Charlie, I did the same thing and will grease them by hand from now on.

brenkco · 03-09-2011, 12:41 PM

I had a service tech out to do a few things a couple of weeks ago. When checking the brakes, he wanted to make sure I didn't ever use the grease zerks. He recommends packing them by hand for the reasons Charlie discussed. Good advise!

Ken

noneck · 03-09-2011, 01:12 PM

I'm with the pull it apart to inspect and grease by hand group.

NCFischers · 03-09-2011, 01:16 PM

I just did mine the old fashioned way. It enabled me to remove all the old grease and check the bearings and races.

Slufoot733 · 03-09-2011, 03:51 PM

I had my SOB service several years ago and the jerk service tech used the EZ lub fitting to grease the bearings. On my next trip I had a terrible time stopping. When we arrived at the campground I spent TWO DAYS cleaning the drums and replacing all my brake shoes. He blew out three of the four axle seals and I had grease all through the brakes.

I know the EZ lub system is easy....but do not trust it! Do it the right way and be safe.

Johnnyg · 03-10-2011, 12:22 AM

IMO EZ lube systems shouldn't be used on axles with brakes or maybe limited to boat trailers where the axles are submerged in water. Since the amount of make up grease that's actually needed to keep the bearings properly lubricated is generally very little there is a good chance the average guy is going to over grease them.

8e3k0 · 03-10-2011, 02:29 AM

I do not grease the EZ lube system and never will. Have well over 15,000 miles on the bearings with no problems to brakes or bearings. Will take a look at brakes and bearings ( may hand pack) this summer which will be 2 1/2 years of running. Still considering the change over to hydraulic disc brakes.

ols1932 · 03-10-2011, 11:38 AM

I had my EZ Lubes removed because it was too easy to ruin the seals. I had a tendency to lube like we did on the farm: if one pump is good, two is better and three is best. That's too much grease. I have been having them repacked every year because it gets my brakes looked at also.

Orv

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