Advised not to repack bearings???
Two years ago, and with our previous trailer, we had a miserable and expensive bearing failure while 4k miles from home. At the time, we had buddy bearings and were under the impression that they did...
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tragusa3 wrote:
Two years ago, and with our previous trailer, we had a miserable and expensive bearing failure while 4k miles from home. At the time, we had buddy bearings and were under the impression that they did the job. I have since been educated (expensively) that Buddy Bearings will not grease the inner bearings.
Fast forward to new and current trailer. We are taking a 6k mile trip this summer. Even though the trailer is one year and less than 2k miles old, we were willing to pay for a complete repacking. Yesterday, I went to the trailer shop where I met some very courteous and knowledgeable guys. The owner has had the trailer manufacturing business since the 70's.
They immediately said that my trailer has Dexter axles (the Mercedes of axles according to them) and they would just pump grease into the grease fitting. I was alarmed, as doing that had terrible consequences for me the last time. He pulled out a demo that he had and showed how the Dexter EZlube worked. It looked like it would logically work much better, but I want absolute assurance that our trip is going to go smooth this summer.
Question: Should I trust this improved way of greasing or still have the bearings repacked by hand? Of course I would have more piece of mind with the hand packing, but I would still prefer to save the $200 if I'm being silly.
Also, I picked up a complete bearing kit that I will grease and put in a ziplock as our spare. That alone will be more piece of mind.
Here's a video that shows what the mechanic explained to me.
Dexter EZ-Lube
I just watched your video link.
It looks pretty slick... Too bad that what it shows is only half of the story. If you do this, you have only removed half of the old grease. Actually a little less than that. The old grease that you see exiting the hub is from the smaller outside bearing. The old grease from the larger inside bearing is still in there. If you want to get it out by pumping grease into the zerk, then you are gonna have to do a LOT of pumping and use a LOT of grease.
