Trailer wheel bearing repair

[stehansen]

I don't know if I told you guys about this or not but I was heading to Santa Cruz to get some stuff from storage for a friend of my wife's last Sunday. About 5 miles down the road I look back and the rear tire on the passengers side of my trailer is smoking huge. I stop (imagine that) and the wheel is locked up and it is the axle without brakes. The hub isn't hot so I can't figure out what is going on. I back up a little and it frees up.
I take the trailer home and the son of my wife's friend tells me that there isn't enough stuff to warrant bringing the trailer anyway.:what:
So a couple of days later I have time to work on it and when I took the hub off the inner bearing fell apart and the race was really stuck on the spindle. I think the inner race made a few laps on the spindle and then welded itself to the spindle. The bearing wasn't dry but wasn't lubed all that well either. I cut the race off with the torch and replaced the inner bearing and seal and did the same to the others. I filed off the extra metal on the spindle until the race from the new bearing went on OK. The rollers on the other side weren't pitted but looked like they had been polished with grinding compound. The guy at the trailer place where I purchased the parts said that the bearings have gotten hot. So it looks like I have been overloading my axles. Well I knew I was doing that but I thought I was getting away with it. The trailer is about 4 years old now.

 

[SkwerI]

4 years is pretty good. Those dump trailer wheel bearings take a beating because there is so much side tension on them when turning the trailer. I'd swap the rest of them out and then install those 'bearing buddies' so you can grease them more often. If they fail at 4 years then I'd plan on swapping them all out every 3 years.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

I think Brian said it right .. Do over with a maintenance cycle that precedes failure pattern... Speaking of which.. The lil 1/2 ton trailer needs some checking....

 

[stehansen]

Yep, I'm figuring on doing my chipper bearings on Tuesday, unless some work comes in.

 

[Al Smith]

I can't say I've ever had a wheel bearing go out on anything. Clean them up,pack with grease .Tighten until snug then back off one notch on the castle nut usually gets it .

It could possible be that the inner seals are bad allowing grit to get into the bearings or something like that .

 

[stehansen]

The seal on the worst bearing did have a little of the rubber part missing. The seal on the other side looked good and the bearing was still discolored and wasn't smooth. I had lots of wheel bearings go out when I was farming. Depth wheels and stuff like that that run all day with dirt being thrown up against them.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Very likely Al as he lives and works were sandy conditions are pretty prevalent...

 

[Al Smith]

I could tell that the area was somewhat sandy by pictures posted about the almond groves .Dust like that combined with axle grease turns it into grinding compound . Not good .

 

[sawinredneck]

Every two years I tear mine down, check and re-grease them. Needed or not, it's good preventaive maint.

 

[Al Smith]

I'd say it's been 5 years since I greased mine .

At that time I replaced all 4 magnets plus the brake linings on both axles and installed new tires . Old Dexter axles with Bendix brakes using Dayton type wheels .

I had a hard time locating the magnets as they haven't used that type in years .

 

[stehansen]

I need to check the brakes on these too.

 

[Al Smith]

Some times it's actually cheaper to buy new linings as have them relined .

Some of them are adjustable,some are not as was the case on my trailer . About the goofiest brake set up up I've ever seen but it does work well because it will lock up both axles with 5 tons on the trailer ,a good thing .

 

[stehansen]

Many moons ago you sent your shoes to be relined or you exchanged them for relined ones. Now they usually only have new ones. I'm wondering if it's the asbestos that changed things.

 

[Reddog]

No, its the everything being made off shore. They could buy new cheaper than they could sell relined.

 

[stehansen]

That was my second guess.

 

[sotc]

We have a shop that still relines for cheap

 

[Al Smith]

As I said some of those brake linings are just plain goofy .Mine are an entire circle ,not two seperate shoes . With the center large magnet deal it must have taken me a half hour of study to figure out how they even worked .

These aren't the standard hockey puck magnet deal found on many trailer brakes .These are heavy duty Judys .

A majority of trailer axles are made by Dexter and usually pretty easy to find parts for such as spindle bearings etc . Of course,my luck to get an odd ball .

 

[stehansen]

Mine are the standard duty, hockey puck magnet, non-heavy duty Judy's.

 

[Jonseredbred]

Our local relining shop went away 15 yrs ago.

 

[Al Smith]

Around here a reline job would be at least twice what a new set would be . A couple of years ago I did my own disc brake lining on my asphault roller because some idiot thought they could put the screws to old Al .They have to get up real early in the morning to get that done .