How to grease/pack/lube the wheel bearings?

[B_and_D]

We haven't towed our TM that much, but this summer will probably reach the point where we will need to do the maintenance on the wheel bearings. Our owners manual does not describe how to lube these. We have a '97 2720.

There is sort of a rubber cover over the center of the wheel that squishes inward if you push on it. The dealer we bought it from got kind of over-enthused about spray painting everything to make it look spiffed up, and the wheel centers were one of the things that got spray painted black (along with the indicator on the propane tanks) :.

When we first towed it back home, there was a lot of black grease that kind of got centrifugally flung out of one wheel, especially, so it seems that there is (or was) a lot of grease there at one point. Past posts have discussed "purging" the bearings until the black stuff runs out, but I don't have a clue about where to stick the grease gun to make it do that. Does the squishy rubber cover come off? Where do you put the grease in? Maybe the 97 model doesn't have that kind of easy-lube setup as described in some of the posts. Should we just take it to an RV place and have them do it?

We did the wheel-well conversion with the help of this board, and really do appreciate all the help this board (and it's wonderful members, please pat yourselves on the back) has been with all so many good suggestions and support.

Thanks for all your help!

[Bill]

Assuming that your 97 is the same as my 2002 -

You have a Dexter axle with EZ-Lube bearings. See

http://i.b5z.net/i/u/1080235/f/Hubs_...rings_9_03.pdf

Be sure to scroll down through at least 10 pages of this document - the info you need is kind of scattered.

To summarize what you will find, you need to pry out the squishy rubber cover. Use something soft, like a popsicle stick to pry with - you don't want to rip the seal. There is a standard Zerk grease fitting under it. You pump grease into the Zerk, then pump some more until old black grease starts to come out around the edge of the rubber seal area, then pump some more until you begin to see new grease come out. Wipe it off, replace the rubber seal, and you're done.

Be sure you use the proper grease. Somewhere on the can or cartridge it should say NLGI-2. National Lubricating Grease Institute, formulation 2 (which is apparently different from original NLGI or extra-crispy NLGI-1).

Bill

[B_and_D]

Thanks Bill --

I'll pry the cover off first and see what's there (being very careful not to ruin the cover) and then look where to put the grease.

I hope that the rubber covers weren't ruined by the spray paint...wonder if you can buy replacements....

Thanks for the quick reply!

I bought a grease gun and grease and put it onto yhe zirc fitting. When I started pumping, I got black grease coming out that looked identical to the new grease I was putting in. How do you tell what is the old and what is the new ???

ColoradoCop 8)

[Bill]

The new grease I was putting in was yellow, so the change was obvious. Are you sure you got NLGI-2 grease? If so, I'm not sure how to tell the difference, except that I bet the new grease has a clean shiny look to it, while the old grease has a kinda thin worn watery fluffy look to it.

I bought one of those mini-grease guns from an auto-supply place - you know, with a barrel about 7" long? I couldn't find any cartridges that contained NLGI-2 grease, so I bought a gun that can be packed manually from a can of NLGI-2. It takes a surprising amount of grease to do the job. Seems to me that I had to put in nearly a whole gun load before I started seeing new grease come out.

If your grease is in a prepacked cartridge, expect to use a whole cartridge on each wheel.

Bill

[MikeD]

While doing my initial 200 mile brake adjustment, I figured that my next task would be greasing/lubing the hubs. I printed out any threads on this board that concerned greasing/lubing the wheel bearings, and then examined my hubs to see what would be required. To my surpirse, my Wheel bearing hubs seem different from everyone elses. My TM was manufactured in November, 2003. It appears that the factory had switched from Dexter E-Z Lube hubs (as described in this thread) to Reliable Sure Lube hubs. They may have even switched to a Reliable axle, but I can't find any identifing marks to be sure.

I've attached a picture of the Reliable Sure Lube hub. As you can see, there is no rubber plug to remove, the zerk fitting is just sitting on the end of the hub. I finally found the Reliable web site, and this page seems to describe the hub --
http://www.reliabletool.com/products/slgrease.htm

I noticed the following differences between the two hubs.

1. Old grease does not come out the front, but the back of the wheel hub where it attaches to the axle. Sure enough, when I looked at the back of my wheel hub, there was indeed a hole in the back with a small amount of grease sticking out.

2. The suggested maintenance schedule is different. Reliable suggests adding some grease every 3 months, 1000 miles, or as use requires. You can add 1.5 to 2 oz or 5-7 to fully replace all of the grease.

3. The Dexter hubs have good instructions for removing the hub and replacing it (for checking the brakes, repacking the hubs), etc. I can't find comparable instructions for the Reliable Sure Lube hubs.

On another board, I found a reference describing how the Sure Lube hubs are very good at keeping water out of the bearings for applications which dip the wheels into water, such as boat trailers. I don't know if this is important to us.

The Reliable site mentions that the grease should be a high quality wheel bearing grease. I assume that the NLGI-2 would still be appropriate.

Does anyone else have experience with this type of hub ?

MikeD

p.s. --- Interestingly enough, the literature that came with my TM contained a very nice booklet on the Dexter Axle and Easy-Lube hubs, but nothing on the Reliable Sure Lube hubs. Go figure ?

I added nearly an entire tube to mine after my first trip last weekend.

[Bill]

No need to open the TM. No need to lower the stabilizers. No need to jack it up. Just hunker down, push the grease gun nozzle onto the fitting, and pump away. You can do it anytime, anywhere.

Bill