Typical greasing of the EZLube requires how much grease? Half tube? Quarter tube? Pushed a quarter tube in and nothing coming out. Almost half a tube in another. Can't be that much grease needed? Pile of videos and diagrams out there but not how much grease would be typical.

Check the back side of the wheel. It may be squirting out inside the hub. This can be a big problem if it gets on the brake drums.I have read that this can be a common issue with Ez lube hubs.

The naysayers are going to say don't do it. But it does take a lot of grease as it has to go thru the port to the rear bearing, thru that bearing, fill the hub cavity and/or push the old grease thru that cavity, thru the outer bearing, and out the front. Seems it took over a half tube per wheel last time I did it. I did see old grey grease start coming out but took a lot before new red grease started coming out. And, no, grease did not go thru the seal onto my brakes.Since nothing came out it is likely the hub cavity was not filled with grease.

Throw your EZ lubes away. One to many squirts will cost you a thousand dollars when the grease hits your pads or shoes. And the EZ lube does not pack the bearings, it just coats them.

Yep, it takes a half a tube or so to get grease through it the first time. I think it's because they give it a couple squirts at the factory and call it good. It holds quite a bit of grease. I just pulled apart one side of my triple axle after 4 years and about 18,000 miles and everything is fine so far. I had no grease anywhere except where it should be. I need to check the other side but see no reason it would be any different. The bearings look and feel good, not notchy, and no pitting or anything out of the ordinary. When I greased mine I jacked up the wheel and added grease while spinning the wheel. Works for me. You really can't overgrease the hubs because the grease will come out the front of the hub like it's designed to do. You can put too much grease in too fast, and perhaps overwhelm the rear seal. Dunno. I have had zero issues with mine. YMMV.

I just did it for the first time and it took almost 3 large tubes to do the 4 wheels. Some may have stopped using less grease, but I kept going until it was very clean. It is "mixed" for a while. My piece of mind that I didn't go past the rear seal is that with each pump, I could see the equivalent amount coming out the front. I don't think that would happen if it were going out the rear.

How much grease in the Ez lube? | Good Sam Community

westend
Explorer
May 28, 2016
Huntindog wrote:
westend wrote:
Lets not get too far away from typical trailer bearings, here. Some of the members here are brilliant technicians or have years of mobile repair and other experience. Some don't like grease on their hands.

I'm sort of in the Lynnmor camp, the EZ Lube feature is not so much a system as it is a hole drilled and a zerk fitting. If it works well for someone, cool. If I had them, I'd be pulling the hubs.

About service intervals: For years, before 1970, trucks and cars all had a similar bearing set to those in RV trailers. Typical service intervals (using the fiber grease) would have been around 10,000 miles. Many of those bearings saw a harder life than an RV trailer.

Opposing tapered roller bearing/races were still pretty common til at least the mid 80s... The grease was a lot better than what was used pre 70 though...Typical service grew to repacking when the brakes were done with the better grease... at least 30K.

So yeah, their is no logical reason why TT bearings need to be done annually or at 12K.

At my age it all starts to be blurred on the time span of what was made and used
but I totally agree with your conclusion and info about grease. With today's synthetic greases and typical trailer loads, an annual repacking is not necessary.
TomG2
Explorer
May 28, 2016
After reading all this conjecture, I asked the local U-Haul people for their advice. They are going to sealed bearings. No repacking, just replacement.
Huntindog
Explorer
May 28, 2016
westend wrote:
Lets not get too far away from typical trailer bearings, here. Some of the members here are brilliant technicians or have years of mobile repair and other experience. Some don't like grease on their hands.

I'm sort of in the Lynnmor camp, the EZ Lube feature is not so much a system as it is a hole drilled and a zerk fitting. If it works well for someone, cool. If I had them, I'd be pulling the hubs.

About service intervals: For years, before 1970, trucks and cars all had a similar bearing set to those in RV trailers. Typical service intervals (using the fiber grease) would have been around 10,000 miles. Many of those bearings saw a harder life than an RV trailer.

Opposing tapered roller bearing/races were still pretty common til at least the mid 80s... The grease was a lot better than what was used pre 70 though...Typical service grew to repacking when the brakes were done with the better grease... at least 30K.

So yeah, their is no logical reason why TT bearings need to be done annually or at 12K.
westend
Explorer
May 27, 2016
Lets not get too far away from typical trailer bearings, here. Some of the members here are brilliant technicians or have years of mobile repair and other experience. Some don't like grease on their hands.

I'm sort of in the Lynnmor camp, the EZ Lube feature is not so much a system as it is a hole drilled and a zerk fitting. If it works well for someone, cool. If I had them, I'd be pulling the hubs.

About service intervals: For years, before 1970, trucks and cars all had a similar bearing set to those in RV trailers. Typical service intervals (using the fiber grease) would have been around 10,000 miles. Many of those bearings saw a harder life than an RV trailer.
fj12ryder
Explorer III
May 27, 2016
Yeah, whatever.
Huntindog
Explorer
May 27, 2016
fj12ryder wrote:
Go around that car or truck and take inventory of how many oil/grease seals there actually are, and then figure out how many of those you've had to replace on all the vehicles you've owned.

My guess would be very, very few overall. Which is my point.

Your guess would be dead wrong. I have a 73 Blazer that I bought in 1985. It now has over 305,000 miles on it. I have replaced most everything on it at least once. I've had other vehicles as well.
Had to do axle seals on my 2001 Silverado 1 ton DRW... That was a real pain.

All parts, even grease seals can fail. In fact they all will fail at some point. Nobody can say when it will happen. But happen,, it will. The bad thing about the Easy Lubes is that it is unseen until it is wayyy too late.

All the parts that you mention that you claim last forever... Call an auto parts store and see how hard it is to buy new ones... It will be really easy. Why is that? Because they SELL them! To people that have had FAILURES.
TomG2
Explorer
May 27, 2016
We need a forum, just for those that like to complain about anything new that might improve our RVing experience. Not everything new is better, but some things are. From spinning the dry bearing with an air gun to sloppy dirty procedures, I am convinced that there might be a better way.
fj12ryder
Explorer III
May 27, 2016
Go around that car or truck and take inventory of how many oil/grease seals there actually are, and then figure out how many of those you've had to replace on all the vehicles you've owned.

My guess would be very, very few overall. Which is my point.
Huntindog
Explorer
May 27, 2016
fj12ryder wrote:
Huntindog wrote:
fj12ryder wrote:
Huntindog wrote:
The first big problem here is that there are only two kinds of grease seals. Those that leak, and those that will leak.
That's right. There has never been a grease seal made that won't fail at some point.

The next problem here is that WHEN a grease seal in the easy lube system fails..... It is unseen. It is most always discovered after the damage is done.

So for those of you that are giving good reports on using this system... I am happy for you now.
But at some point your seals WILL fail too. It could be next week, next year or the year after. For all you know, they may have failed now.:E
Okay, that's not the most ridiculous thing I've ever read, but it's pretty darned close.
What part is ridiculous?

The part about all seals failing at some point? Surely you don't believe that they will last forever.

The part about the grease getting on the brakes when they fail? That is pretty much indisputable unless you have disk brakes.
I've worked around machinery for 40 years that depended on grease and oil seals to keep lubricants where they belong. And as long as the seal isn't damaged, it actually will pretty much last forever. I've seen them last long enough for that rubber coated spring seal lip wear a groove in a 4 inch diameter steel shaft.

How do you think they keep oil, under pressure I might add, in engines? They use oil seals and those seals last hundreds of thousands of miles. When was the last time you pulled the engine of your car apart to replace the seals? Or pulled the wheel bearings off your car for failed grease seals? Or pulled the differential for leaking oil seals?

Grease seals and oil seals work the same way. So yeah, yours was a pretty ridiculous statement.

Ummmm. Replacing a engine rear main seal is pretty common. I have done a few on my own autos.. Iv'e done a few axle pinion seals and axle shaft seals too.
I've also seen quite a few wheel bearing seals that failed.

But I have built quite a few motors, transfer cases, trannys and differentials.... So I DO know what I am talking about.

But in most all of the cases I just listed, a failed seal is mostly an annoyance. The particular part just oozes or leaks fluid without causing any harm other than a spot on the driveway.... Not rear main with a stick shift though... That oil gets on the clutch.

Our TT wheel bearing grease will end up on the brakes.
jake2250
Explorer
May 27, 2016
The EZ lube hubs are a great addition to my trailer, I pump in some fresh grease every couple of years or so. Annually I crawl under and look on the backing plates to see if any grease or grime is leaking out, so far it looks dry.I also manually run the brakes up to almost locking and see if i can spin the drum then I go another notch and lock em, if I was getting grease on my brake shoes they would still spin,, if the lock and hold,,they are dry,seal is good and EZ Lube hubs are doing exactly what they are designed to do!!
One other thing I do every other year or so is take a fuzzy little pipe cleaner and bend it in half, I then run that pipe cleaner along the castle nut washer all the way down to the bottom, I am looking for grease consistency,if the grease was breaking down the bent end of the pipe cleaner would be wetter than the middle, indicating that the grease is not holding together. (I do this test after the trailer has sat for a while to check for pooling).

My trailer is six years old to me,ten total and I have only repacked and checked brakes once in that time. Brakes were fine and bearings looked good!
Don't feel I need to do that annually as it would be a waste of time effort and funds!
Same thing with my fishing boat, I have bearing buddies that work perfectly, Just push in grease until the little red indicator shows and they are packed,, Been like that for seven years now, no brakes on that trailer so I really don't need to fuss with it,, every other couple if years I replace tires and give the wheel a spin,, if its quiet I leave it alone!!

Forum Discussion

How much grease in the Ez lube?

About Technical Issues

Related Content

Grease in EZ lube dust cap

Grease gun/ grease recommendations

Greasing EZ Lube TT axles

Adding Grease Zerk

Greasing the hitch