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elkhorn98's avatar
elkhorn98
Explorer
May 09, 2015

Damaged bearing w/pic

Repacked yesterday and had to change this one out. It was the inner bearing. Castle nut seemed too loose. Would that cause this or overloaded? It was on the heavy side (slideout). The other wheel on that side was starting to do this too but not as bad and I changed it too. Had been a little over 2 years since last repacked.

Moderator edit to re-size picture to forum recommended limit of 640px maximum width.

  • Pretty much impossible to say. You can speculate, but no way to tell from a picture.
  • No way to tell for sure but to me it looks like the cage cought on something when you put the hub on or took it off.

    We are only on the road about 5 or 6 months a year so I only check the bearings 5 years or so. Our last TT was 9 years old when we traded it in and it still had factory bearings
  • Similar to my Silverado's rear axle bearings that I have to change every few
    years...because I have 1 ton coil helper springs on the rear axle. That I over load
    it every year during firewood/wood-pellet season. Many times loaded up to around
    2.4K-3K of wood in a half ton (6.2K GVWR & ~4.25K RGAWR)

    Most times the cage is mangled similar to this picture and other times one of
    the rollers are out of the cage and the rear end starts to make a 'noise' because
    there a roller missing. A looooong magnetic tipped retriever gets the roller
    before it gets to the diff

    If the castle nut was loose, then think it allowed the shaft to move laterally
    and one roller took a new rout to deform the cage...or as someone stated...maybe
    during assembly...will never know...unless this repeats...
  • fj12ryder wrote:
    Pretty much impossible to say. You can speculate, but no way to tell from a picture.


    I agree, too many variables. That type of damage would be more likely done during assembly/disassembly.

    Jerry
  • Judging from what I see in the photos, the inner race shows no damage nor skidding which suggests sufficient fit, but the bearing cage is bent or deformed which could be an assembly problem either damaged during assembly or improper castle nut torque causing the bearing cage not to sit properly and 'wobble' therefore uneven pressure causing deformation.

    I have one question the outer race is there any scoring or unusual marks?