Wheel bearings again

[partsman01]

So just a thought, bought our current 2004 Fleetwood wilderness lite 24.5RK fifth wheel, used in 2010 and the dealer did what ever they do before one takes delivery of it, anyway I have never done the bearings.

I have the EZ lube, so I have pumped grease in once or twice, but only till I see the old grease move, not till the new shows up.

Anyway my question is that I have over time bought a few tubes of grease, even work in the transportation industry, so have access to lots of grease, and I was thinking of pumping one wheel full per instructions of dexter, then taking the bearings apart as now they probably should be inspected anyway just to see how or if the system works like it should, anyone ever experiment to see how it looks when taken apart, seems it would be an interesting thing to see, and like people say one should at some point start from scratch and go over everything once in awhile.
we have not used the rig in at least two years and even then we might do only 1500 or so Kilometers a year.
Just curious to see what you all think.

[jimh406]

jorn wrote:

jimh425 wrote:
If you pump too much grease, you might blow the seals. I think it would be better to clean/repack if you want to start over and make sure the grease is good.

Did you alert the manufacturer that their system doesn’t work the way they say it does?

Nope, because I was thinking of a different system that you also pump grease into ... oops.

[fj12ryder]

transamz9 wrote:
No, I believe he said a "reputable professional" not a dealer. I usually only get about 4 years out of my brakes on my RVs so I repack my bearing about every 4 years but I do pull the caps and do a visual inspection of the outer bearings every year. 6 point auto level makes short work of it.

To be fair, the poster I referred to didn't specify whether it was an RV dealer, a trailer dealer, or an independent shop. It's possible it was a reputable professional who had an off day, or an undeserved reputation.

And I really didn't mean take it to an RV dealer, I used dealer as a generic term. I probably should have used the word "shop".

[transamz9]

fj12ryder wrote:

justme wrote:
Forget the easy lube. It was intended for boat trailer and the RV mfg's use it as a good sounding marketing ploy. Grease and inspect your bearing/races the old fashion way every 8-12K miles or once a year and you will have less problems. If you are not comfortable doing it your self, have a reputable professional do it for you.

You mean take it to a dealer like the poster before you? Seems like there are quite a few people who post they had problems after a shop has done their brake/wheel bearing job.

Doing it every year is silly. I finally did check mine after 6 years and they are fine. Every year just means there's more chance of messing something up. It's probably not a bad idea to have them checked when new to make sure they're assembled correctly and properly greased. After that ever few years is fine, unless you're putting on some big miles every year: 15,000-20,000 miles. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

No, I believe he said a "reputable professional" not a dealer. I usually only get about 4 years out of my brakes on my RVs so I repack my bearing about every 4 years but I do pull the caps and do a visual inspection of the outer bearings every year. 6 point auto level makes short work of it.

[Dave_H_M]

i agree with fj12. Sometimes if you have something that isn't broke worked on enough, it will need fixing.

[fj12ryder]

justme wrote:
Forget the easy lube. It was intended for boat trailer and the RV mfg's use it as a good sounding marketing ploy. Grease and inspect your bearing/races the old fashion way every 8-12K miles or once a year and you will have less problems. If you are not comfortable doing it your self, have a reputable professional do it for you.

You mean take it to a dealer like the poster before you? Seems like there are quite a few people who post they had problems after a shop has done their brake/wheel bearing job.

Doing it every year is silly. I finally did check mine after 6 years and they are fine. Every year just means there's more chance of messing something up. It's probably not a bad idea to have them checked when new to make sure they're assembled correctly and properly greased. After that ever few years is fine, unless you're putting on some big miles every year: 15,000-20,000 miles. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

[justme]

Forget the easy lube. It was intended for boat trailer and the RV mfg's use it as a good sounding marketing ploy. Grease and inspect your bearing/races the old fashion way every 8-12K miles or once a year and you will have less problems. If you are not comfortable doing it your self, have a reputable professional do it for you.

[Road_Phantom]

We had a wheel come off our Cougar lite. Took the drum with it, which broke and had to be replaced. Four months prior to that we had brakes done. I would have thought they would have done the bearing grease then. I would definitely give bearings a check at least once a year.

[jorn]

Dexter's overview video for the E-Z Lube System.

[john_bet]

Never pumped grease into my Montana in 12 years. Pulled the hubs twice in that time and all was well.

[jorn]

jimh425 wrote:
If you pump too much grease, you might blow the seals. I think it would be better to clean/repack if you want to start over and make sure the grease is good.

Did you alert the manufacturer that their system doesn’t work the way they say it does?

[Irelands_child]

The E-Z lube bearings are fine but Dexter does a CYA in their bearing manual where they recommend 12K miles or 12 months. Conservative as far as the time factor, miles - well if you are 'elderly' like me, you then can recall doing bearing maintenance on your rear drive car. Same thing that Dexter recommends. We generally put 7-8000 miles a year on our 5er. So with that in mind, I do ours every spring. I've also pulled those no-name bearings supplied by Dexter and replaced them with US made Timkens. Those 8 bearings and four 10-36 seals were about $125 for a 6000 pound axle with 5200 and lighter axles a bit less. Now, that story about blowing seals - you wont if you use a hand pump grease gun and rotate the tie/wheel/hub assembly while pumping lube in. The biggest downfall with this system is when you repack. It takes at least 200 pumps and almost a full tube of grease to fill that pretty large hub.

Someone mentioned Nevr Lube hubs - the 50mm capsules (7000 pound axles) are seldom a problem. It's the 42mm assembly (5200/6000 pound axles) that tend to be a problem, failing, occasionally catastrophically in West Overshoe on a Saturday night. Luckily, Dexter has for the most part moved on from these but still supply axles to OEMs with questionable tapered roller bearings

[pyoung47]

It sounds like an interesting experiment. Repacking the bearings as frequently as every two years or so is probably overkill for most applications, but a failure can be a real catastrophe. Repacking is as much for inspection as lubrication. I found a couple of my outer bearings with some rough places the first time I repacked. They were probably not near failure, but it was cheap to replace them with new ones.

[jimh406]

If you pump too much grease, you might blow the seals. I think it would be better to clean/repack if you want to start over and make sure the grease is good.

[partsman01]

Thanks for all the responses, I figure we have not put that high a mileage on it, but i too feel one should at least check the bearings visually once in a awhile, I always did my own cars and so will do the trailer, but did think it would be interesting to do one wheel and see when i take it apart how well the grease got distributed.