Continuous failure of TT wheel bearings - I am so ashamed...

[befu]

Hello, have a problem that I need to ask for some input on. Bit wordy with a 4 year history to tell, but here we go. We have a 2012 Puma 31dbts trailer that we have camped in 4 summers now, love it! The second year camping with it, I believe I over heated the brakes pulling around Ohio Pyle State Park in Pennsylvania. Did not notice damage then, but that is the first time I noticed the hot smell after towing in hills. (Yes, down shift and control speed, thought I was, last grade was rather severe and no shoulder. Learning as I go... anyways, they got smelly hot.) Rest of trip went well, had a blast.

Later that summer, 2nd year, I had the left rear bearing fail on me and it was pointed out by a passing vehicle. Outer bearing was shot, nut had some damage from hub wear, spindle did not seem to take damage. So I put a new seal, both bearings and cups in it with a new nut and went home without issue.

The next summer, third camping, I fought bearing heat issues. Never lost a bearing, but the two right side bearings would get hot. The front left side was cool, back left side was slightly warmer, right rear was getting hot and front right was about 10 degrees warmer. You could put your fingers on the hubs, but not for more than 5 or 6 seconds. I pulled them apart, put new bearings in and reset everything. Still getting warm, so replaced bearings, cups and seals. Would be better, but still get hot on 2 hour tows.

So last summer, 4th season, we had a big family trip out to Yellowstone from Indiana. I said the heck with it and purchased and installed new bearings, cups, seals, nut, drum and brake assembly from etrailer for the front right side, since that was the hottest one. Seem to do better and later we headed out on that 3,000 mile tow trip, which I constantly fought and worried with hot bearings on the right side of the vehicle. Left side was fine and cool. Last summer was pretty cool, so hot temps were not bad. Here is the kicker.

Made it out west and back to Wisconsin and I was waved down by a driver next to me about a rear wheel. Pull over and sure enough, that back left wheel bearing was shot again! Needed a new drum, nut and bearings as it wallowed out the outside bearing hub race location. All this with no indication of trouble like the hot bearings on the right side. So fixed that and while it works, it is still running warm while towing. Sometimes OK, sometimes a bit warm. But I do not feel safe towing right now. Now I am looking at what to do getting ready for the upcoming season.

The main thing that bothers me is I have not replaced anything on the one cool hub, but have adjusted brakes and greased the bearings. I am mechanically inclined, work on equipment all the time, fighting with am I the cause of this? Bearings are not that hard, I do not know what I am doing wrong. Have a full shop with presses, lathes, mill..... all kinds of toys. Have run bearings a flat loose so you could just feel a bit of wobble or give. have tightened one flat and also ran them an extra flat tight. All the same. One wheel cool, one wheel cool with two failures, two wheels hot to warm.

I am wondering if my spindles or axles are damaged? Last time digging into them, I did notice what I think is some colorization due to heat on the right spindles. How do you tell if the spindles are wore down or mis- shaped? Didn't think they are tempered. Are the inner bearing races spinning on the spindles?

I am not above putting two new axle assemblies under this thing. Or just buy the new axle tubes/spindles and weld the seats on. Looked at converting to hydraulic disc, but that is still using the same spindles. I guess I need to mic the spindles, where to look up the specs? The bearings came off the spindles, new ones went on easily, thought that was fine. Still, I would think the bearings turning on the spindles would get the spindles hot, not the brake hubs. Vehicle tows great, rolls fine. Doesn't seem to be dragging. Scaled the axles, everything is pretty heavy, but nothing at or over the axle spec weights. 5,200 pound axles, 3/4 ton burb with 8.1L in it, does fine. Have a scale at work so have checked it multiple times setting up the hitch distribution. I would like to think I am not an idiot, but what idiot would realize they are an idiot????? The only thing I have not changed is the axles and spindles. Well, and springs, equalizers and bushings.

Thoughts? What am I missing? new Axles? Motorhome? LOL, gotta get it fixed so we can go camping!!!!

Thank you.

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Wheel bearing mainenance takes a bit of care. One of an amateur's mistakes is to improperly install the bearing race. That race has to go in STRAIGHT evenly and seat against the hub flange
Both sides. Lubrication Engineers Almagard 3752 I relube religiously every 150,000 miles or 10-years. Whichever comes last. Superior lube encourages phenomenal seal life.

[befu]

The old suspension came off pretty easy and I replaced it with the Dexter E-Z flex suspension system. Really not too bad, did one side at a time and it came right off and new one right on. The old system was already shot. Besides the two shackles that had already failed, another two where egg shaped and all the plastic bushing were worn through. The steel bolts where rusted and starting to wear also. The dexter kit is not cheap, but it is well worth the price for what it fixes. First thing I noticed is how quite the trailer was backing it out of the drive, no more of the noisy squeaks and groans. Some from the hitch, but none from the suspension.

first tow with it went pretty well. We went about 4 hours over two days and they warmed up, but not too bad. Still not real happy, but I ran with it. At one luch stop, I checked the tires by jacking up each wheel independently. One seemed a bit warmer, so upon jacking it up I noticed it was a bit too tight. Pulled the pin, backed the nut off one flat and closed it up. The other wheel on that side was really cool, so I jacked it up just to see how it felt and was surprised that the wheel was really loose! Like floppy loose!

Only thing I can think of was I just put new cups in the drum and one must not have been seated fully. So right there I spun it and torqued it back down, then backed off two flats closing it up. Rest of the trip went well with the hubs seeming warm, but consistent.

The next trip I remembered my IR temp gun. Again, hubs seemed warm to the touch and but the gun was consistently reading them around 106 to 119o F. The temps were in the low 80's and the sun was out, sun side warmer than the shade side. This does not seem bad.

The first year and a half, I forgot that the hubs had those clean looking white plastic covers over them, so I was more measuring the temp of the wheel where it bolted to the hub. Third year I removed the cheap white covers because they looked dirty and it allows me to monitor the black hub of the drum directly. So while the hub is measuring above 100 but below 120, the center of the steel wheel is definitely cool. I actually have no idea what the temperature of the drum hub was those first two years as they were covered.

This Wednesday we are towing just over 4 hours, so it will be a good test. But it has done just fine the past two times and you can tell the difference with the dexter kit installed. I was pleasantly surprised by that.

Now I need to research tire wear and make sure mine is pretty normal. We tow a lot, at least I think so. probably 2,000 to 4,000 miles a year. Last year the trip to Yellowstone logged 5,100 on the burb alone, over 3,000 of that was towing.

\Thanks for all the input, I will update again later.

[befu]

[befu]

So I found out some things. first, when putting the new drum on and replacing some of the bearings, I found a few trouble things. First, the right rear was missing the brake magnet retaining clip, which is probably not a big deal. But upon looking at the magnet that fell off, I discovered my suspension had failed. The right side, rear axle shackle had cracked and had elongated holes. This unit was 49 months old when I found this, shows just how they build them!

So I put the new drum on the left rear, relubed the rest of the bearings and put new bearings on the right side. Both axles I think, but at least the front axle. I set them with the axle jacked up, torqued to 50 ish pounds while spinning. Then held the wheel still while I backed the nut off and turned it back in finger tight. Then loosed it till the cotter pin went in. The rear tires also wear so much more due to turning, so I swapped them front to rear. I was going to replace the rears next year, but figured I would swap them around, maybe run them two more years and just buy 4 new ones. At that point they are all 6 years old and need to be replaced anyways.

So next thread are three pictures of the broken shackle and the rear tire off sitting next to the front tire. The corners on the rear are really rounded off.

[Huntindog]

RJsfishin wrote:
Many of the replys here insinuate that alignment, toe in, or bad suspension and overload could cause this problem, which I'm saying this is not the case.
Properly installed wheel bearings are designed to take any kind of overload pressure, side thrust, or any other kind of abuse imaginable. I mean, even if alignment was off so bad as to tear the tread off a brand new tire in 100 or 1000 miles, it would not even faze.....or over heat, much less ruin a wheel bearing.

Now, if the 2 bearings in the same hub are out of align w/ each other, this will raise havoc w/ the bearings. This could be caused by the bearing surfaces on the axle not being machined parallel w/ each other, or the bearing bores in the hub not machined parallel w/ each other.
I know, this is highly unlikely, but so is the problem the OPoster is having, and it the only answer I can come up w/.
At any rate, I am sure this is not a suspension alignment problem.

X2.
These suspension are not all that high tech. There is a LOT of play in them. For one it allows them to twist in tight turns. But when going straight, they tend to self align due to the slop in them.

[RJsfishin]

Many of the replys here insinuate that alignment, toe in, or bad suspension and overload could cause this problem, which I'm saying this is not the case.
Properly installed wheel bearings are designed to take any kind of overload pressure, side thrust, or any other kind of abuse imaginable. I mean, even if alignment was off so bad as to tear the tread off a brand new tire in 100 or 1000 miles, it would not even faze.....or over heat, much less ruin a wheel bearing.

Now, if the 2 bearings in the same hub are out of align w/ each other, this will raise havoc w/ the bearings. This could be caused by the bearing surfaces on the axle not being machined parallel w/ each other, or the bearing bores in the hub not machined parallel w/ each other.
I know, this is highly unlikely, but so is the problem the OPoster is having, and it the only answer I can come up w/.
At any rate, I am sure this is not a suspension alignment problem.

[lenr]

Lots of good suggestions here--a few more ideas:

Lippert adjustment procedure from a 2014 Lippert manual supplied with a Puma trailer is: tighten to 50 ft. lb. (didn’t say spinning, but I would); back off; finger tight; back off until pin or tang aligns. I see that this matches Dexter.

If OP is not using an infrared temperature gun, I suggest a cheap one. Even if inaccurate, you can compare wheels. Would be curious to know the tire temperatures compared to the wheel/hub temperatures. I usually see 10 – 20 degrees warmer on the tire than the hub. Tire temperatures might show a severe alignment problem. Is there any possibility that it is brakes dragging? However, if the wheel turns a whole turn freely, the brakes should be loose enough. Lippert says ½ to 1 turn free. Checking the brake controller (as mentioned) is a good idea.

OP could check angular alignment: move trailer back and forth a half dozen times to take strain from the last turn out of the axles. Drop a plumb line from the front center to mark on the ground. Measure to the front of each lead tire. Should be the same within ¼ inch. Measure center to center on the two axles—should be within ¼ inch.

I’ve had trailers with Alko, Dexter, and Lippert axles. I’m a little under-whelmed by Lippert, but mostly because of weak brakes (and have read of others experiencing weak brakes with Lippert). Never have had bearing problems. Because of weak brakes on the 4400 lb Lippert axles on our Puma 253FBS, I got them switched out to the 5200 lb axles by the factory at a very attractive price. On the last trip last fall, I had one hub heating up. Since I had just adjusted the brakes before the trip, I loosened up the hot wheel—the high temperature mostly went away.

I feel for the OP—lots of stress over this. I would find a truck, spring, and trailer repair place, Dexter if possible. Stay away from the RV stores. This looks like it’s going to need some serious troubleshooting, and maybe just a little professional money spent might solve it. I have a Dexter place in Indy that does this work for less than the RV stores, and they know what they’re doing. If the OP is ready for serious money in replacing axles, I’d go with Dexter first, Alko second.

I’m going to PM the OP with some additional local information.

[befu]

OK, so I am going to do a few things.

One, I will order new bearings and cups, just start the year with all fresh stuff since they have been hot.
Second, I am ordering a new drum for $50. The one I replaced in Wisconsin was slightly different and takes a different outside bearing. Nothing wrong with it, but it has a unique bearing and just means a different part to carry with us. I will keep it as a spare as it will work on boat or travel trailers.
Third, I will strip the bearings down and mic the spindles. Have to look up what the dimensions and tolerances are first. make sure spindles are right.
forth, while stripped I will have to look at the suspension components to see if everything looks right or moves. (frame on jack stands, use jack to move axles up and down.
Forth, if everything else checks out OK, put back together and take it out for a tow I guess.

Brian

[Lynnmor]

Some of the above information is incorrect. See Dexter instructions: Dexter

[rjsurfer]

+ 1

Perfect way to explain adjustment of bearings.

Ron W.

[StewB]

As per dexter information.

With the wheel off the ground, I use a tourqe wrench and tourqe the axel nut to 50lbs, spin the wheel, back off the nut, re-tighten the nut to finger tight, place cotter pin, or in my case bend over lock tab plate, if pin or tab don't line up, loosen nut to accomodate.

With the wheel off the ground, if you grab the top of the tire you should just barely feel movement if pull push on the tire.

Been using this methonde for 35 years on my boat and travel trailers. Never failed me.

[Big_Katuna]

RJsfishin wrote:
On a tandem equalizer set up, why would the rear axle "usually" carry more of the weight ?
I'm always up to learning something new.

Big Katuna wrote:
And the rear axle usually carries more weight than the front.
The fact they all are running warm make me think me think the axles are running near max.

Physics. The wind pressure at speed pushes the front backward
The force is triangulated between the hitch and the axles so the rear axle sees more of the pressure.

[RJsfishin]

On a tandem equalizer set up, why would the rear axle "usually" carry more of the weight ?
I'm always up to learning something new.

Big Katuna wrote:
And the rear axle usually carries more weight than the front.
The fact they all are running warm make me think me think the axles are running near max.

[pyoung47]

Check to be sure your wheels are not warped. It is very easy to damage steel wheels when turning sharply. Jack up the wheel, and turn it while holding something close to it to see if you detect a wobble.