How often do you repack wheel bearings?

[BB_TX]

quote:Originally posted by joco

So does this mean its ok to use the Zertz fitting? How are people getting grease on their brake linings? Maybe Ill just upgrade to never lube hubs... anyone know how much they cost?

In some hubs, the zerk ports into a closed chamber and too much pressure/too much grease has no choice but to force the grease out the seals. But as you can see in the video Steve posted, these hubs are ported so that the grease flows into the rear of the hub and out the front instead of out a seal. Too much pressure too fast and it would surely go out the seal also. I am sure that is why some have had the problem of getting grease on the brakes. Or maybe from not continuously turning the wheel.
Also from the video, you can see that grease thru the zerk only goes to the inner bearing. The only way to get it to the outer bearing is to push enough grease thru to move it from inner to the outer. That would explain why Bill's outer bearing was dryer.
As I said, I pumped mine very slowly while continuously turning the wheel. Again, I would not recommend anyone else doing it since there have been some who had a problem with it. But following the Dexter directions seemed to work for me.

[Bill-N-Donna]

It isn’t fun when you get grease on the brakes!
Don’t ask me how I know.

[sreigle]

All I know is that the first time we had our brakes checked our dealer's service manager told me I was putting too much grease in them and getting grease onto the linings. He stressed and made sure I understood I was to put two squirts per year into each zerk. I commented we're fulltimers traveling quite a bit and he clearly reiterated to use just two squirts per year no matter how many miles we put on the rig.

Since that time, back in 2003, I've followed his procedure. I have the brakes checked and the bearings manually repacked by his service dept every other year. I've had no bearing problems other than one he replaced because he thought it felt a little rough. And at the two year mark he told me the brakes were about half gone. We traded that Montana before the next two year mark.

So, yes, in my opinion it is fine to use the zerks as long as you use it judiciously. To me, that means two squirts per year. No more, no less. Everyone else will have to make their own decision but this works well for me, so far.

As someone said on an earlier page, the animation shows that new grease first flows into the inner bearing, then works its way to the outer bearing. At first I thought that would mean dirty/worn grease goes from the inner bearing to the outer bearing, meaning not good for the outer bearing. However, if using just two squirts per year and repacking manually every other year, I really doubt the grease used for a year in the inner bearing makes it as far as the outer bearing. Rather, the new greases just pushes previously unused grease into the bearings, grease that's just been sitting outside (or between) the bearings. But I don't know that for fact. That just makes sense to me based on the procedure I use and that animation.

[noneck]

We too struggle with "when" and I suppose it can't be wrong to do it too much... As a part - timer I would like to do it every other year. I typically do it every year and when I do my trips are mentally less stressful (one of those can't get it out of my head issues).
My procedure includes;
1. Pull each wheel one at a time as tire can be swapped but never swap the cups an cones!
2. Check hangers, grease zerks
3. Wash all grease, inspect cups for pitting, hand pack cones only, no extra needed, inspect brakes, adjuster, wiring
4. Reassemble and set castle nut snug...kinda compress it and back off to align for cotter pin, tap cap back on, remount wheel
5. Snug up brake tension and test operation (I have an old brake controller configured to allow doing this)
6. Check tire pressure, side wall and tread and add air as needed
Once done...I'm usually ready to go look at rest of mechanicals as the fever starts peek (camping fever that is)

[NASCARon]

Who has upgraded to the no lube hubs? Does anyone have info on that?

[BubbaLynn]

Since others mentioned ez-lube hubs, I thought a few of you might be interested in this link.
Note the paragraph under grease guns that mentions that most high pressure guns deliver over 10,000 psi of pressure & that most seals can only withstand 500psi.

Even though our new Mountaineer has the ez-lube axles, I don't think I'll be lubing the bearings this way just for that reason.

http://www.machinerylubrication.com/Read/584/grease-gun

[mopar1]

I read the Dexter axle owners manual about greasing the ez-lube hubs. Using my hand pump grease gun I slowly started pumping the bearings and hub full of grease waiting for the grease to pump back out at me. Has not happened yet. Maybe it's really dry and a really large area to fill up. And maybe Santa will visit me this Christmas too. 40 pumps later and I guess I have to pull the brake drum off to clean all that grease out of there. Not happy!

[bobsals]

OK guys, here's something to think about. How often do you repack the wheel bearings on your car or truck? If you are like me, never. Why, because most vehicles now have bearing packs and need no servicing. Even when we did repack the front wheel bearings on our cars (most of you over 50 remember this) we did it only at about 30k miles or whenever we did a brake job. My feeling is, if the wheel bearings are fully packed with good quality grease (after I did it), that it shouldn't be necessary again until you have to service the brakes. About a year ago I got into an e-mail conversation with a tech at Dexter asking about bearing repacking. He stated that they need to be serviced more often because of the extreme torque and weight that they have to carry. I wrote back and said "gee, they make bearings big and strong enough to take torque and weight so why don't you put heavier bearings on your hubs?" Guess what guys, I never heard back from him!.
As far as the Never-Lube bearings, be glad you have the EZ-Lube. I had the Never-Lube on my last fiver and had to replace all four of them. VERY EXPENSIVE!. The Never-Lube is a bearing pack. the bearing pack is two tapered roller bearings in a single unit in close proximity to each other. The total length of the bearing pack is only about 2.5" and less than 1" between inner and outer bearings which causes extreme stress on the bearing pack. Upon inspection, I noticed play in the wheel, I removed the bearing pack with my friends arbor press, and took the bearing apart. I found the races had scored pretty badly so replaced all of them. With the EZ Lube, we have about 6" between bearings which torque is much easier on them. This has been my experience and will never purposely buy a unit with Never-Lube bearings.

[SlickWillie]

quote:Originally posted by bobsals

OK guys, here's something to think about. How often do you repack the wheel bearings on your car or truck? If you are like me, never. Why, because most vehicles now have bearing packs and need no servicing. Even when we did repack the front wheel bearings on our cars (most of you over 50 remember this) we did it only at about 30k miles or whenever we did a brake job. My feeling is, if the wheel bearings are fully packed with good quality grease (after I did it), that it shouldn't be necessary again until you have to service the brakes. About a year ago I got into an e-mail conversation with a tech at Dexter asking about bearing repacking. He stated that they need to be serviced more often because of the extreme torque and weight that they have to carry. I wrote back and said "gee, they make bearings big and strong enough to take torque and weight so why don't you put heavier bearings on your hubs?" Guess what guys, I never heard back from him!.
As far as the Never-Lube bearings, be glad you have the EZ-Lube. I had the Never-Lube on my last fiver and had to replace all four of them. VERY EXPENSIVE!. The Never-Lube is a bearing pack. the bearing pack is two tapered roller bearings in a single unit in close proximity to each other. The total length of the bearing pack is only about 2.5" and less than 1" between inner and outer bearings which causes extreme stress on the bearing pack. Upon inspection, I noticed play in the wheel, I removed the bearing pack with my friends arbor press, and took the bearing apart. I found the races had scored pretty badly so replaced all of them. With the EZ Lube, we have about 6" between bearings which torque is much easier on them. This has been my experience and will never purposely buy a unit with Never-Lube bearings.

Great post. My feelings exactly. I've seen a lot more bearings fail after be serviced than those left alone. We used to have two overhauls a year at the power plant. Disassemble everything for inspection and reassemble. Sure enough, when we tried to bring the unit back up, we would lose several items due to bearing failure. Dirt and grit ain't no friend to a bearing. I'll run mine until I feel the brakes need servicing.

And I hate those "CYA" comments from Dexter.

[mhs4771]

I agree with the previous two posts. On our previous TT, ran it for several years, then during NYS Inspection they repacked the bearings, would you believe several months later we burned up a bearing, what a site to see in your mirror, smoke coming from a wheel! To add to the saying "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", all you back yard/farm mechanics, remember the old points and condenser in the distributor, I know younger generation has no idea what that is? Generally the condenser (capacitor) was changed along with the points. Well you stood more of a chance that the new condenser would be bad than your original actually failing. From previous post about grease in brakes (happen to me too), guess it would be a good idea to check when new, makeing sure you're in a clean room (LOL) like that will happen, and ensure no grease on the brakes, install new rear seals, pack the bearnings. I think I'll play it by ear when I think they need repacking.

[mopar1]

quote:Originally posted by mopar1

I read the Dexter axle owners manual about greasing the ez-lube hubs. Using my hand pump grease gun I slowly started pumping the bearings and hub full of grease waiting for the grease to pump back out at me. Has not happened yet. Maybe it's really dry and a really large area to fill up. And maybe Santa will visit me this Christmas too. 40 pumps later and I guess I have to pull the brake drum off to clean all that grease out of there. Not happy!

Maybe Santa will visit this year! I removed the brake drum and it was DRY in there! I could not believe it. grease was just filling up the empty space between the bearings. Put it back together and it took all of four more slow pumps and grease started to come back through the outer bearing. The same happened with the rest after lots of pumps of grease.

[Hooker]

I gave each wheel two shots of grease, very slowly, and never repacked any of them. No problems.

[mopar1]

quote:Originally posted by Hooker

I gave each wheel two shots of grease, very slowly, and never repacked any of them. No problems.

After looking inside at how much grease it can hold, Two pumps isn't doing anything. Maybe the back bearing is getting a little bit but the outer bearing is just running on old grease. Unless of course someone completely filled the units up before you got it. (the factory must just put greased bearings in there, they do not fill it).
If you are not seeing grease coming out through the outside bearing you are not greasing it period.

[farmboy]

I did mine for the first time since new(6 years) in May before our 5k plus trips. They were over packed at the factory with some grease passed seal, but now on brakes. Brake shoes still good, but probable change them before we do another big trip in about 3 years. JME.

[campfire42]

I just read an article from Woodall's about greasing our wheel bearings, and I didn't understand the path of the grease through the bearings either until I went to Dexter site and saw what has been previously posted here. The one thing that Woodall stressed that no here has mentioned is you have to take the tire/wheel off of the hub, then the end cap, and then start pushing grease through the bearings. Without the end cap off, you can't see grease coming out, and there isn't any place for the grease to go except out the seal! So, it isn't as easy as just using the zerk fitting, but the system is supposed to work, which I haven't tried yet or greased any of my bearings.

[berridge]

This AM I decided to try greasing my wheel bearings using the recommended method for the EasyLube system- two squirts. As there has been so much discussion as to how effective this system is I decided to then remove the wheel and see what had happened to the grease. I observed- not really to my surprise- that the new grease was nowhere to be seen. After cleaning the spindle up I tried two more squirts and observed that the grease emerges through a small orfice near where the rear bearing race sits. From the Dexter video that Steve Reigel posted I expected to see some sort of channel which would then conduct some of the grease forward to the front bearing area as that is what it looks like on the video. It was very clear that no such conduction takes place. The grease simply flows into the hub through the one orfice at the rear. In order to get grease into the front bearing the hub must be FILLED UP! This would take a very large amount of grease so I doubt this is done at the factory where I would guess that the grease is applied in the traditional way. From my observations it appears to me that the "two squirt" method has no effect at all as the whole hub has to be filled first. Guess I'll stick to the old way although I'd by happy to be corrected if my observations have led me to faulty conclusions particularly as to the flow of the grease in the the hub on its journey to the front bearing.

[8.1al]

Berridge,
You are entirely correct, the middle of the hub must be filled before grease reaches the outer bearing and they don't come from the factory that way.

[mopar1]

That is what I did, slowly pumped the hub full till the grease came out. It took several tubes of grease to accomplish that. Now the two pump rule would work.

[bigmurf]

When those wheel bearings get hot where does the excess go?

[8.1al]

And they will get hot if everything is packed full of grease. All that grease creates friction. Can you imagine trying to swim in a tub of grease? That's what the bearings have to do when everything is packed full. If the bearings are hand packed and the middle cavity is empty the excess grease can go there.