Nasty Bearing Failure

[lucyloo]

After a 2 month stay at the Canadian border with the fifth wheel (2006 Cardinal TSL33) we headed home on the 14th of August. A stop at a rest area 45 minutes in to the journey was uneventful. Everything was good on the Fiver during a walk around. Resumed the trip and headed down the I5 toward southern California. 10 minutes down the road a van puled beside us and got my attention, a glance in the mirror was horrific. Fire and smoke was streaming from the driver side rear axle. pulled over immediately in heavy traffic in Bellingham Wa. Jumped out and grabbed the gallon of water from the bed of the truck, the center hub cover was gone and was shooting fire from the hole. I jammed the open bottle in the hole and squeezed in a bunch of water which doused the fire but smoke was billowing out from under the rig and the alarm was screaming inside the trailer. Added some more water and got the fire out and situation under control. The bearing had disintegrated and destroyed the axle, hub, brakes and spindle. I put a jack under and the wheel and hub (still attached to wheel) just fell away from rig after I removed just 1 lug nut. Called for road side assistance (USAA, 4 hours to get some help). Mechanic chained up the axle and I limped the rig 3 miles to a shop. (Motor Weld). 3 days later and $1300 (new Axle, brakes, 1 hub, and new bearings all wheels) back on the road to Cali. the rest of the trip was uneventful. Another 10 seconds and we probably would have lost the wheel, had a rig on fire and who know what else.

[laknox]

Charlie D. wrote:

laknox wrote:
Not saying it's right, or advisable, but I ran my Komfort for 10 years before having the bearings done; maybe 10-11k total miles since I bought it new. They are EZ-Lubes and I'd give each one about a half-dozen shots of grease every year and check for play. As I was having some other work done on it at a shop, I just told them to replace them all, along with the seals and adjust the brakes. Had no (or minimal) grease past the seals and there was no appreciable wear on the bearings. Just my experience...Lyle

Where did the grease go if it was not on your shoes? 6 pumps x 10 years=60 shots. That's a lot of grease in that bearing cavity. I do agree that people, myself included, may be over doing it on bearing maintenance. Properly greased and adjusted and bearings should last many years. Longer, IMO, that the brake shoes if one does a lot of traveling.

Dunno, but it wasn't on the shoes, according to the shop that did the work, and I =did= ask. Frankly, I think a =lot= gets forced back out the front, as the area around the zerks was pretty full of grease. Nothing leaked beyond that...

Lyle

[Charlie_D_]

laknox wrote:
Not saying it's right, or advisable, but I ran my Komfort for 10 years before having the bearings done; maybe 10-11k total miles since I bought it new. They are EZ-Lubes and I'd give each one about a half-dozen shots of grease every year and check for play. As I was having some other work done on it at a shop, I just told them to replace them all, along with the seals and adjust the brakes. Had no (or minimal) grease past the seals and there was no appreciable wear on the bearings. Just my experience...Lyle

Where did the grease go if it was not on your shoes? 6 pumps x 10 years=60 shots. That's a lot of grease in that bearing cavity. I do agree that people, myself included, may be over doing it on bearing maintenance. Properly greased and adjusted and bearings should last many years. Longer, IMO, that the brake shoes if one does a lot of traveling.

[laknox]

Puddles wrote:

laknox wrote:

YakFishMo wrote:
Why is it that camper bearings need repacking? Cars go hundreds of thousands of miles and don't need repacking. Does anyone know? My 2012 Cedar Creek has not had the bearings repacked. Am I on borrowed time?

Not saying it's right, or advisable, but I ran my Komfort for 10 years before having the bearings done; maybe 10-11k total miles since I bought it new. They are EZ-Lubes and I'd give each one about a half-dozen shots of grease every year and check for play. As I was having some other work done on it at a shop, I just told them to replace them all, along with the seals and adjust the brakes. Had no (or minimal) grease past the seals and there was no appreciable wear on the bearings. Just my experience...

Lyle

Hey... You should be out there buying lottery tickets..

I wasn't worried, since I did check every year and, frankly, didn't travel all that much. I have an IR thermometer and check my tires and hubs at every stop, too.

Lyle

[trail-explorer]

justafordguy wrote:
X2, A TPMS can save the day.

x3
http://www.tiretraker.com/ is the one I run. It shows temp too.

[Puddles]

laknox wrote:

YakFishMo wrote:
Why is it that camper bearings need repacking? Cars go hundreds of thousands of miles and don't need repacking. Does anyone know? My 2012 Cedar Creek has not had the bearings repacked. Am I on borrowed time?

Not saying it's right, or advisable, but I ran my Komfort for 10 years before having the bearings done; maybe 10-11k total miles since I bought it new. They are EZ-Lubes and I'd give each one about a half-dozen shots of grease every year and check for play. As I was having some other work done on it at a shop, I just told them to replace them all, along with the seals and adjust the brakes. Had no (or minimal) grease past the seals and there was no appreciable wear on the bearings. Just my experience...

Lyle

Hey... You should be out there buying lottery tickets..

[YakFishMo]

MPI_Mallard wrote:

YakFishMo wrote:
Why is it that camper bearings need repacking? Cars go hundreds of thousands of miles and don't need repacking. Does anyone know? My 2012 Cedar Creek has not had the bearings repacked. Am I on borrowed time?

My mechanic came to my trailer on-site and pulled the remaining three hubs and pressed the new bearings in place and re-assembled everything and checked the whole she-bang for $150 (minus the cost of the bearings), I figure i'll have that done every five years when I swap out my tires and that should keep me on top of things!

That's probably not a bad idea.

[MPI_Mallard]

YakFishMo wrote:
Why is it that camper bearings need repacking? Cars go hundreds of thousands of miles and don't need repacking. Does anyone know? My 2012 Cedar Creek has not had the bearings repacked. Am I on borrowed time?

My mechanic came to my trailer on-site and pulled the remaining three hubs and pressed the new bearings in place and re-assembled everything and checked the whole she-bang for $150 (minus the cost of the bearings), I figure i'll have that done every five years when I swap out my tires and that should keep me on top of things!

Red Green:
If life gives you lemons, throw 'em into
a quart of vodka.

[laknox]

agesilaus wrote:

laknox wrote:

agesilaus wrote:

kirbybear wrote:
agesilaus Do you have a repeater on your TST system?

Repeater? It has a control unit with an LCD that shows the pressure and temperature on one tire at a time. It takes it several minutes to cycle thru all four tires and even more time if you have sensors on the truck tires too.

Repeater = "signal booster" if the base unit has a hard time "seeing" the trailer sensors due to distance.

Lyle

Distance hasn't been a problem, it does have an external antenna but it can see the fiver sensors as is.

OK. Just making sure that you knew that this was something that some applications need to use, either because of distance or because of interference. Frankly, I'm a bit of a tech-head, and have always thought it would be neat to have 2 cameras and IR sensors in each wheel well to =see= what's going on in real time. 🙂

Lyle

[RedRam]

I have the TPMS system and I also have my mirrors adjusted so I can see my trailer tires all the way down the side of the camper from the tires back.I make it a habit to glance in those mirrors every once in awhile and I guess it's habit from many years before technology came out.

[agesilaus]

laknox wrote:

agesilaus wrote:

kirbybear wrote:
agesilaus Do you have a repeater on your TST system?

Repeater? It has a control unit with an LCD that shows the pressure and temperature on one tire at a time. It takes it several minutes to cycle thru all four tires and even more time if you have sensors on the truck tires too.

Repeater = "signal booster" if the base unit has a hard time "seeing" the trailer sensors due to distance.

Lyle

Distance hasn't been a problem, it does have an external antenna but it can see the fiver sensors as is.

[YakFishMo]

Cummins12V98 wrote:

YakFishMo wrote:
Why is it that camper bearings need repacking? Cars go hundreds of thousands of miles and don't need repacking. Does anyone know? My 2012 Cedar Creek has not had the bearings repacked. Am I on borrowed time?

The bearings on cars that don't need servicing are the sealed type. Yes you should have your bearings serviced by someone that knows what they are doing like a frame and axle shop.

Thanks Cummins!

[mikeminder]

Wanted to chime in just to mention that the majority of TPMS on the road today also monitor your temperature, which is important for brake and bearing issues like the one discussed in this thread.

agesilaus wrote:
Thanks for the tip on Tire Minder. I'm really dissatisfied with my current TPMS (TST). It does not display all the tires at the same same and you have to watch it s-l-o-w-l-y cycle thru each tire. It's a dangerous distraction on the road. Plus it did not catch the two blowouts that we had this last summer.

In regards to the TireMinder system, it does not cycle through each tire position automatically. It does, however, display any tire that has an issue and display the tire issue (high pressure, low pressure, high temp, etc.). Which you pointed out can be distracting and dangerous.

[laknox]

agesilaus wrote:

kirbybear wrote:
agesilaus Do you have a repeater on your TST system?

Repeater? It has a control unit with an LCD that shows the pressure and temperature on one tire at a time. It takes it several minutes to cycle thru all four tires and even more time if you have sensors on the truck tires too.

Repeater = "signal booster" if the base unit has a hard time "seeing" the trailer sensors due to distance.

Lyle

[laknox]

YakFishMo wrote:
Why is it that camper bearings need repacking? Cars go hundreds of thousands of miles and don't need repacking. Does anyone know? My 2012 Cedar Creek has not had the bearings repacked. Am I on borrowed time?

Not saying it's right, or advisable, but I ran my Komfort for 10 years before having the bearings done; maybe 10-11k total miles since I bought it new. They are EZ-Lubes and I'd give each one about a half-dozen shots of grease every year and check for play. As I was having some other work done on it at a shop, I just told them to replace them all, along with the seals and adjust the brakes. Had no (or minimal) grease past the seals and there was no appreciable wear on the bearings. Just my experience...

Lyle