Wheel Bearings

How frequently do you have your wheel bearings repacked?

When I asked this questions to the service dept where I bought my TM, they told me that the factory recommends this service every 12,000 miles or once a year if you live in a dusty environment.

[Patriot]

I also recommend re-packing the bearings once a year or at least every 2000 miles. I also recommend using high temperature bearing grease. The factory uses a lower temp grease that does not hold up as well. Perhaps the 12,000 mile service comment was referring to the steel bearings which if repacked as part of your maintenance should last that long.

[Bill]

Patriot and others -

Both the TM factory and Dexter Axle are very specific about grease. The container must say "NLGI 2".

"NLGI" is the National Lubricating Grease Institute, which sets industry standards for lubricants. The "2" refers to a particular set of specifications for this type of grease.

This is the first I've heard about the factory using inferior grease. Since the TM factory buys the entire axle set (including hubs, bearings, brakes, etc) directly from Dexter, and presumably they come pre-greased, this would be odd indeed. I don't think Dexter would use inferior grease, since it would increase the number of warranty claims and hurt their reputation.

Bill

i went into O'reily auto parts and showed them the 2 bearings if there is someone in there with intelligence they will go to the back of a certain bearing manual and you have a choice of american made bearings or made in china, the american ones take 2 weeks to get they are much harder and should last longer. in your dexter manual they have the bearing part numbers and there is a kit available for those bearings and you save 25 to 30 dollars for ordering the bearing and seal kit. i got the china version and i will replace them this week, i put 2000 miles on them and they did produce a little slack, but they did run cool after running 75 plus miles per hour with the trailer for 300 plus miles. i have noticed if the bearing has a small amount of slack(just a tiny bit of click when you move the tire off the ground) the bearing runs 30 to 40 degrees cooler, for me i was afraid to run a bearing with so much slack and i was used to running them tight. i ran 1 side tight and 1 side loose and the loose side was 30 to 40 degrees cooler. the walmart grease is half the price anywhere else.

[thewayneo]

My local parts place suggested I call Timken Bearing to find better-quality "Made in USA" bearings. Timken told me that AutoZone is their major stocking distributor. I called ahead and they had bearings for my TM in stock and they were stamped "Made in USA" (important to me). However, not a single employee at AutoZone knew anything about wheel bearings and they were unable to determine the correct grease seals to use. I went back to my "old school" parts house for the seals, and there they removed the old races, installed the new ones, and turned the drums for me. They took me to the shop area and let me watch the remove/install and turning process, and gave me lots of tips. So nice to have a place like that!

BTW--the bearings I removed were stamped "Made in Romania". The Timken rep was unsure if they were made for Timken. He said sometimes they do contract to have bearings made in other countries when expedient.

I'd go for the 12,000 mile repack but I have a hard time keeping track of miles so I do it on my other trailer "every couple years".

wayne

Originally Posted by malcolm4536

running 75 plus miles per hour with the trailer for 300 plus miles.

Welcome to the forum, I hope you find much beneficial info here. Suggest that you become a member as it gives you access to much more information and will probably prove to be a very useful expense! When/if you do join, please edit your signature with info on your TM and TV, as it will help us when discussing things you might be interested in.

Not wishing to stir up anything, but the above quote jumped out at me. This is at least 15 mph faster than most anyone will recommend, not for the bearings but for the tires. Besides being illegal in most states, most of the tires are just not rated for those speeds. Do a search on "tire failure" and you might see what I mean. If you blow a tire there is a very good chance you will do major damage to your TM. I will rarely go over 60. Is there a reason you are driving so fast?

Wayne, You may want to check with Hickman trailer in Colorado Springs. THey have helped me many times with bearings.

[Speckul8r]

Interesting posts. The last time I saw a Timkin bearing it was made in Mexico. The Chinese bearings have been doing fine for me. I've had the same bearings in the boat trailer for 9 years. Soak 'em in salt water at least 200 times a year (I run a charter boat) and grease 'em with the flow thru system, the same one that is on the TM, 3 to 4 times a year.

Bought my 2002 TM used a couple months ago with no idea how/if the bearings had been maintained. Decided while out dry camping to connect the zerks to the grease gun. I had felt the hub on our first trip and it wasn't bad, but this time out the drivers side hub was hotter than all hades (I got in the habit of constantly checking with our first popup). Manual that came with the trailer said it should take 10 to 20 pumps to get clean grease coming out.

Since I only had 1 tube, of bearing grease with me (I believe 14 oz), half a tube later I figured I should disconnect and give the other side some grease. I'm going to give them both another shot soon, but I would say that the hubs were much much cooler when we returned the trailer to storage (of course same distance as it had been towed previously)

BTW-it wasn't nearly as messy a job as I had expected. I just put old newspapers below the hubs and caught the old grease as it dropped out. Now if I can just figure out how to properly disconnect the grease gun from the zerk. It was like I was losing a tug-of-war LOL