[Wavery]

The problem with buying any 20-year-old trailer is that you have no clear history of the service that the trailer has had. Worst case scenario is that the previous owners have never removed, cleaned, inspected and and reassembled the wheel bearings or trailer brakes. Best case scenario is that the previous owners kept meticulous records of recent services and all is good. Chances are, your TrailManor is somewhere in between.

The manufacturer recommends that the bearings be inspected yearly. The reason for that is bearings can suffer from the abuse of over-loading, sitting for long periods of time without rotating and various other things.

The problem is, you are now 20-years into the game with (more than likely) no idea of the condition or abuse to these bearings. There is a good chance that you could hook up, drive a few hundred miles and be fine. There is also a chance (maybe slim) that you could be going down the freeway and one (of 4) bearings overheats, freezes up, spins a race on the spindle and the spindle breaks. If that happens, the tire & wheel come off and enter traffic. Maybe into oncoming traffic.

Anyway, it is prudent to pull the bearings, clean them and inspect them with a magnifying glass for pits and/or discoloration. If they are good, pack them with grease and install new grease seals.

Before installing the brake drum, look at the brake lining to be sure that they are at least 1/8” thick and not coated with grease. Next, look at the brake magnets and be sure that the wear sensors are quite visible. If you can’t see the wear sensors, replace the magnets.

Entire new brake assemblies are fairly cheap and may be worth just replacing. It’s just 4 bolts and 2 wires to replace the entire brake assembly, including the backing plate.

After assembly, adjust the brakes and test. The best way to test to see if the brakes work at all is too spin the tire (with tire off the ground) then pull the pin out of the breakaway switch. The tire should abruptly stop. If it does not stop, check to be sure all of the wires are connected. It is common for a wire (or2) to have come apart. Don’t worry about polarity. The wires to the magnets just have to be connected.

You can find many YouTube ideas on servicing trailer bearings. Watch a number of them because some people don’t know what they are doing.