Grease those trailer bearings!

Pumpkinslinger

I bought a small trailer to carry the kayaks and learned a lesson about how tight to get the retaining nuts... Luckily I had a couple friends with a lot more experience that I have working on trailer bearings. Apparently whoever originally assembled the trailer didn't know what to do either.

1895ss

I have never had a problem with trailer bearings failing but i use the same method as Bushy (hand packed) once a year. A thing to remember also is the smaller the wheel the more often it needs grease. Some trailers with 8 inch wheels make many more revolutions in a mile compared to the 15 inch wheels on my trailer.

Eremius · Member Joined: Dec 04, 2011 Posts: 92 Location: Owosso, MI

Dallan,
Just think about how cool you looked with the flames shooting out of your hubs!

DallanC · Site Admin Joined: Jan 18, 2005 Posts: 3572 Location: Utah

LOL!

I looked over the new axle carefully, as I plan to do the swap tomorrow. The spindle is drilled with a zerk fitting on the end... so its like the reverse of bearing buddys, pushing grease from inside the spindle out. Kindof a cool feature I didnt notice when I got the axle.

-DallanC

Bushmaster

Sorry Dallan, but i'm a bit old fashion when it comes to packing wheel bearings. Over the years I've seen wheel bearings over heat when packed solid with grease.

I will continue to pack the bearings with NO grease between them.

Proper bearing adjustment for Timken style (tappered roller) is to take a 12" cresent wrench and let the drop weight of the wrench set the nut. If the cotter pin hole doesn't line up, go to the next tighter hole. Tappered Roller bearings require a preload on the bearing.

Ball bearing type (bicycle) are set with just the free play removed with no preloading of the bearing.