Wheel bearing service

Every 10k. I usually do enough dirt and rough roads in that 10k that it is necessary.
I have had one bearing failure and I hope to not have anymore. Cheap insurance.\

Also a check should be made regularly on the bearing bush in the eye of the spring (leaves). One guy pulled into the park last week with an eye broken. Took him an hour to travel 10 km with frequent stops to tie the axle back into place.

bill

Bill B and Pedro,

Four bearing problems with fellow travellers, all had been overhauled within a month or so of travelling by reputable workshops
One van wheel was peeling the paint, the bearing was too tight. Loose is better. We backed it off and it saw the trip out.
Another tandem had to complete the trip on 3 wheels and wait for parts. These bearings were serviced by the builder.
One 4x4 front wheel CV cover fell off due to corrugations and exposed wheel bearings to sand. Toyota workshop.
Another van has the one wheel bearing destroyed, it fell apart and was blue. This was also serviced by the van builder.
The well known bathtub curve is alive and well. Failures are more likely at the beginning after overhaul, then hopefully a good service life to the end of service life and expect failures.
Keep a good check on temperatures, particularly after an overhaul

Cheers,

another lesson in knowledge of bearing condition worth taking note of is
when you buy a new set of bearings put the cone into the cup and rotate it back and forth and take note how increditively smooth it is
then after you have removed the old set do likewise and you will very quickly acknowledge the difference of the worn surface how rough it feels and why there is so much heat build up when traveling at normal speeds equals frictions plus heat in comparison to the set of new smooth rolling surfaces
if there is any roughness at all discard the old and replace with new
i always prefer new rather than a washed bearings cheers

hi
After looking for a waterproof grease for constantly wet machinery the greases I found are
Belray - in OZ there are different divisions industrial ,auto, motorcycles, Its easier to ring the usa for recommendation .They have a great selection
Royal Purple only do one
Industry grease /oil specialists very very expensive does as claimed works under water
Dupont
The true waterproof greases are either alluminium based , ptfe based made by Dupont
Dupont is difficult to get in oz
I settled on a lithium /calcium combination grease part time submersion [limited for auto use ]

Clay and lithium complex are water resistant not waterproof

NB just because a grease maybe available does not mean its suitable for auto wheel bearings

Typically lithium and clay are water resistant not water proof . Both donot like submersion .
The best greases are harder to get and can be costly .

swampy

I went into all this in detail a few years ago...... reading grease spec sheets, grease application notes and advisories and having direct conversations with lubricant engineers on lube company help lines........ if you realy want to know ..... get one of these lube engineers talking and you will find out a great deal.
You can get all twisted out of shape but the fact remains that "blue Grease" or "Lithium complex" is now the bench mark water resistant grease. ..... it is now the one go to grease for most mere mortals.
Under the castrol brand, it is now sold as LMX or in small quantities " boating grease" ..... previoulsy marketed as APXT. ........ it is pretty much standard and all the major lubricant companies have a lithuim complex grease or a range of lithium complex greases, some fortified with teflon, molly or graphite.
PTFE ( teflon)has never been a base for grease ..... like Molly, graphite and other solft metals it is used to fortify greases .....and as a fortifier in greases it works very well ...... in the past and still current, very common in old style lithium grease.
Aluminium grease ..... is old technology .... I still have a tub of Belray from the 80's, a bloke I knew was a Belray dealer back then ..... in the 80's it was the $#!^ hot waterprrof grease and commonly used in the boating industry ...... mostly translucent green stuff ......its been replaced by lithium complex in most applications.
Lithium complex ( blue grease) will outperform old school lithium ( castrol LM) in every application ....... it will outperform bentonite or high temperature bearing grease ( castrol HTB)( one of the clay bases) in every respect, except, extreem high temperature performance. It has plenty of high temperature capacity for normal wheel bearings ..... unless you are in motorsport and you get your disks glowing bright red ...... blue grease has more than enough temperature capacity. ....... HTB does have extraordinary high temperature performance ... if your HTB grease failed you seals where probably burnt and the temper in ya berings will be suspect. ....... most mortals don't need that.
In wheel bearings, we need to have seals, caps and bearings in good condition, Blue grease is well capable of dealing with a little water contamination ......... if however you get your hubs full of water ....... you are in trouble anyway, ..... no grease no matter how good will continue to lubrcate a tapered roller bearing under load.
Lithium complex is very commonly available.
As I say Castrol sell it in small tubs labled "boating grease", it can be had at a good price at most diesel & earthmoving spares shops in the larger bucket. ... Boating grease will cost you about $15 in a retail store for 500 grams ....... LMX baught well will cost you about $35 for a 2.5Kg bucket.
All the major lubricant compaines have a lithium complex grease ...... it has become a commodity item and the only grease some workshops now need.
If you want Teflon fortified lithium complex Nulon sell it in the small tub at the usual auto discounters ..... it is coloured red ..... I use this in my ball joints, universals and tailshaft slip joints.
The other lubricant companies have various forms of fortified lithium complex ..... but it is not commonly stocked in retail stores
From my reseach and several years of experince with it .... I have every confidence in Blue Grease in wheel bearings that may be exposed to water.
Two points of caution ......
the blue colour stains ..... not so bad on skin but moderately hard to remove from clothes.
And left under pressure in a grease gun the oil comes out of it ..... so either take the tension off your plunger or empty you grease gun befor you put it away.
I have heard that some of the cheaper L complexes may split ..... so stick with the known brands.
cheers

Bantam, you seem to be on a roll here, so may I pick your brains a little? :-)
2 questions
1 I'm aware you shouldn't mix greases. But if the greases are the same base, is it safe? Specifically, Castrol LMX and the Nulon you mentioned - both lithium complex.
2 I have three applications:
a) hubs on an off-road hybrid camper. 3 ton bearings, but only a ton on each wheel. They go in water.
b) Suspension bushes on the camper. A nylon or similar insert is pressed into the swing arm (2 bushes each side). It moves about a stationary steel insert clamped between the mounts.
c) greasable shackles on the tug
Various service people have espoused the benefits of their favourite grease - be it a moly fortified, teflon fortified or plain blue LMX.
What do you think would be the one best grease for all three applications - if there is one?
Cheers and thanks for your help.

Thanks for your good advice
Pedro

All good advice from Bantam.

I'll add one more thing, from my hard-earned experience over nearly 50 yrs of owning a lot of trailers and caravans.

The seal on the inside of the hub is the weakest part of the bearing protection.

Yes, the cap (or a missing cap - as I've seen, many a time!) can also be a problem area - but generally, a good fitting bearing hub cap seals better than any lip-type seal.

In general, the inner bearing fails more often than the outer bearing.
This goes against initial thoughts - as the bigger bearing is on the inside, and the smaller bearing on the outside - but the bigger bearing is carrying more weight, because of its central position relative to the wheel and tyre.

What happens (on gravel and dirt roads, with speed) is the inner, lip-type seal, cops a hammering from the vast amount of stones, dirt and dust thrown at it by your tow vehicle wheels.
Front wheel bearings on vehicles never get this treatment, so they give less trouble.

As a result of the hammering by stones, dirt and dust being thrown at the trailer/van inner hub seal, it fails fairly rapidly.
Once the lip-type seal starts to fail, it commences to allow dirt into the bearing.
The dirt dries out the grease, it turns the grease into a grinding paste, and the bearing fails fairly rapidly.

You can prolong inner hub seal life substantially, by making up a large diameter piece of thick, heavy felt (8mm thick is good, thicker doesn't hurt) that is at least the outer diameter of the lip-type seal - and with a hole in the centre of the felt that matches the axle diameter.

When you install (or re-install) the hub, you slide the felt onto the axle, and give it a good coating of grease on the side facing the seal.
You then install the hub, ensuring the heavy felt is up close and personal with the rear of the hub and seal faces.

This piece of heavy felt then acts in two ways;

1. It protects the lip-type seal from the impact of stones and dirt ... and
2. It acts as a labyrinth-type seal, in conjunction with the lip-type seal, to improve the overall sealing of the inner bearing ...

I have used this arrangement for many years, and have never had a problem with a failed inner bearing since I started using it.

The water/rust problem with bearings is created when you drive through deep water, and the water gets into the hub - and then when you leave the unit sitting for a couple of weeks or more, corrosion forms on the exposed bearing races or roller surfaces, and that's the start of bearing destruction.

You can assist here by ensuring your bearing caps do not have a hole in them - as many do - supposedly for pressure relief.
You don't need caps with holes in them - the pressure buildup in hubs is minimal, and any pressure build up is released through the lip-type seal on the inside of the hub, anyway.

It's far better to have a fully sealed hub, that resists the entry of water in flood conditions or water crossings, than to have one with a vent hole in the cap.

Finally - when I install hub caps, I clean the mating surfaces of the hub and cap lip - with a volatile solvent - and then smear some high temperature RTV such as Copper Maxx or Ultra Maxx on the mating surfaces and tap the cap on tightly.
The RTV ensures a full seal against the entry of any water between the cap and hub mating surfaces.

Cheers, Ron.

Long read down the thread, before this was mentioned... I NEVER use Chinese made bearings.. For the few extra bucks, always go with the main stream brands.. I know some local repairers only sell the Chinese ones.. Not for me!.. They are cheap for a reason.. Odog

Yep, I've serviced the bearings on many other trailers and seen a few Chinese bearings that have gone rough well before they should.

Trailer bearings are servicable and fail commonly
Vehicle bearings are mostly sealed, non-servicable and rarely fail!
Wouldn't be great if trailer bearings were sealed as well?

But vehicle bearings often have a driveshaft going through the middle so they are a lot bigger than would be required to carry the weight.
My Tvan axle is rated at 1600kg and has bearings that are less than half the size of my Landcruiser bearings that carry similar weight.

The other thing is .... the hubs and bearings in trailers are usually run much closer to their engineering limits than they would be in any motor vehicle.

cheers