cruisemaster suspension bearing overhaul kits

The existing bearings & seals have numbers on them.
That is all a bearing supplier needs.

Cheers,
Peter
OKA196 motorhome

Dean - 90% of the buggered wheelbearing dramas I've seen, involve damage to the stub as well - so the chances of a bearing destroying itself, and then you being able to just whack in a new one, are not particularly good.

9 times out of 10, when a bearing collapses, the inner race starts being dragged around on its seating area on the stub, thus creating seating area damage and ensuring any new bearing is either difficult to fit - or there's a bodgy fix done, with loctite required between bearing and stub, to retain the bearing race.

The best technique is preventative maintenance. Most boat trailer bearings get checked about once every 5 years (if at all), and that's the reason you see so many wheel-less boat trailers by the side of the road.

Before you set off, pull the hubs, check the bearings for grease quantity and quality, and re-grease if needed.
Check the bearing condition by spinning the hub first, to see if there's any roughness or rumbling.

An inspection of bearing races soon shows if there's any serious marking or roughness that indicates possible failure soon.
A properly-lubricated and properly-sealed bearing will last the life of your trailer/caravan, if a good quality bearing has been fitted, if the seal hasn't been damaged - and it has been supplied with adequate grease.

All too often, bearing installers only slap a sniff of grease around the rollers and reckon that's good enough.
It's not - the hub should be filled with grease to the level of the bearings, to ensure that grease continues to flow to the bearings over time and kms.

By doing so, you also help eliminate an area where water can otherwise collect, when the wheel bearings are submerged.
Water inside a hub will start to rust bearings in as little time as a week, as soon as the trailer/caravan stops.

One area that causes bearing failures, is the seal on the inside. This seal cops a hammering from road debris and flying rocks, dust, and water thrown up by the tow vehicles wheels.

I have always made a point of cutting a heavy duty "seal protector" from thick felt, when re-installing wheel bearings.
You acquire some felt about 10mm thick and cut a washer out of it, with the centre hole just a little smaller than the diameter of the axle. The outer diameter needs to be the diameter of the inner seal.

Push the felt onto the axle until it's positioned just on the inside of the inner seal position.
Coat the surface of the felt facing the seal with a good coating of grease , and install the hub with the seal and bearings.
If there's a gap between seal and felt washer, push the felt washer snugly against the seal.
The felt washer then acts as both a seal protector from road debris, and as an additional labyrinth seal.

I have used this trick for many decades, and I have never had a wheel bearing fail since I started doing it, and I have owned numerous tandem trailers and caravans.

Cheers, Ron.

They can be ordered with sm, slm or vt bearing kits depending on the load rating of the trailer - info from the order form on their website.
You will have to open up your hubs and get the number off your front bearing to confirm which one you have.

Our caravan uses Cruisemaster components. I rang the manufacturer Vehicle Components and they supplied me the part numbers - went and bought a set of Timken bearings and seal. I also emailed the caravan manufacturer and they emailed me the same part numbers. In the next few weeks I need to do the first bearing service so will confirm the numbers then.

But when you're away it takes very little time to jack up a wheel, rotate it and check for play. I usually do this after the first day or two and occasionally during the trip. I expect most bearing failures were failing for some time. I've never had a bearing failure, but I also never use cheap bearings.

I'll give OEM a call see what they say, I don't have the specifics of what was ordered on the camper this info is missing from the project paperwork.

PMI is one of my biggest things going -i hate seeing others lack of mechancial sympathy on some vehicles around the place -often death traps for the innocent in some cases.

Know axles have been pulled apart regreased etc but at times it makes me wonder if they are fully competent or not as concerned as i am.

example of this i could hear a rumbling sound from lhs whilst sitting in silly seat mentioned it, driver eventually stopped checked tyres removed a few ball bearing stones (lateritic gravel in WA) and couldn't find anything really obvious started again noise was worse, even swmbo could hear it now.

Stopped at Moora the starter motor packed it in 4wd was sent off to toyota then autosparkie to be fixed overnight, now the driver could even hear the rumbling sound whilst travellign at semi highway speeds, off to tyre shop see what they could find.

Turns out a wheel stud had snapped and was oscillating inside the hub cap giving the sound, to me this means wheel aren't tight enough and needs to rectified (replaced straightaway) but atlas no leave it until we get back to Perth.

That was nearly a month ago after a 2 1/2 week surveying trip and still to be fixed, fortunately owners going overseas for 3 months so give me bit of time to sort these issues out.

So thus why I get a tad concerned about some maintenance on this camper unit. Sods law clearly states that if anything will go wrong it happens to me.

The 6 P's also comes to mind: prior planning and preparation prevents pi** poor performance

sounds kinda familiar we both sand gophers Ron.

PMI is radio comms for Planned Maintenance and Inspection - not to be confused with Telstra issues over past year that's just a competency thing or lack thereof with SOP for start up of system

I use a $15 ebay digital thermometer to check bearing and tyre temperatures on the vehicle and trailer. Only takes a moment. Does that make any sense?
Keith

glad i had closer inspection outside of lhs wheel totally worn away not sure if it excess toe in or camber issue so this point waiting to see what supplier says topic

I emailed them of this issue and taking it from there -reading the media blurbs (sales specs etc) seems specialist tools needed for alignment -thermal imaging FLIR beyond my budget to test a bearing for excess heat but if you got a seized caliper then you can smell and feel heat flume around 4 metres away admit that point its probably too late