Disastrous day

[Johnnyfry]

Well, everything is looking great for heading home after 228 days on the road. After only a 50 mile run I was backing into a state park campsite when: WHAMO! - a big bang. I looked in the mirror and the rear passenger side wheel was at about a 30 degree in relation to the other one.

I called Good Sam emergency service, which gives excellent service, by the way, and ended up finding a completely disintegrated wheel bearing. The outer bearing was beyond recognition and the brake shoes on that wheel bent out of shape. The drum itself was scored beyond repair.

Rig is now in the shop, but the thing is, not a hint of a problem going down the road! It just let go when I was maneuvering into the campsite. Of course the hub was sizzling hot. There was plenty of grease on the spindle and the inner bearing --- there was grease all over the place! The drum had been off and inspected in the not too distant past.

Not one of the better RVing days!

John

[Festus2]

John -
Sorry to hear about your misfortune but glad to know that it happened while going slow in reverse and not while in the midst of traffic on a freeway somewhere. There is a positive in your disastrous day!

[smiller]

Yes, 'good' that it failed when it did. :eek:

Since your unit is too new for a catastrophic failure like that due to lack of maintenance I would guess that someone screwed up somewhere during assembly, either no grease or improper preload or something.

[Jim W]

Yes, 'good' that it failed when it did. :eek:

Since your unit is too new for a catastrophic failure like that due to lack of maintenance I would guess that someone screwed up somewhere during assembly, either no grease or improper preload or something.

Why can't this bearing just fail from use, do you know the B10 life of the bearings being used?
It is unfortunate but items do fail from use regardless of maintenance on these items.
John, how many hours have you towed this camper since new?
Jim W.

[smiller]

Why can't this bearing just fail from use, do you know the B10 life of the bearings being used? Unlikely in the extreme. I don't think it would be possible to exceed the normal life of a wheel bearing in a 2012 unit if he was on the road 24 hrs/day. It could possibly be a bad bearing from the factory but that is uncommon.

[fla-gypsy]

It could have been worse.

[Jim W]

Unlikely in the extreme. I don't think it would be possible to exceed the normal life of a wheel bearing in a 2012 unit if he was on the road 24 hrs/day. It could possibly be a bad bearing from the factory but that is uncommon.

Why, do you say that you do not think it is possible to exceed the normal life of a wheel bearing from a 2011 Cougar? This is the model year of John's 318SAB Cougar, like my unit it could have been purchased in the early part of the year of 2011 and put on the road in April or May of that year.
Another point you need to realize is all items that are used in the design and production of any product being manufactured have a B10 life on any component. This means that some units of that design item will fail before they reach the normal replacement or wear out timeframe. Just a fact of designing and manufacturing products with a set selling price to the consumer. I know of some components that have a design life of 1,000 hours of operation, this is what is called the B10 life of that component. That means 10% of the components will fail before they reach 1,000 hours of operation.
Jim W.

[Johnnyfry]

Well all,
Here is the outcome. The axle spindle was scored to the point that it was better to replace it. A new Dexter axle assembly was located within a day's shipping and we went with that. Dexter did not advise welding a new spindle to the axle citing alignment issues, in fact they intimated that the axle repair in Whitehorse, Yukon earlier in the year may have contributed to the bearing failure because of an alignment error.

In any event, I agree with JimW that any premature failure can be an outlier and that a 50,000 hour MTBF does not guarantee that every piece reaches that goal.

Looking at it philosophically, the Yukon repair got me to Alaska and back as far as Wisconsin so it did have value even though it was not as good as one would have hoped. The fact that the final failure happened backing into a campsite rather than at 60 mph on I-90 was fortunate also.

We spent a wonderful unscheduled 3 days in New Glarus, WI and are now on our way home.

By the way, we are in Goshen, IN waiting to visit Reese tomorrow to have an engineer look into the continuing problems we have had with the Reese Sidewinder hitch. That's another story that I will relate after the visit, and after we return home.

Cheers,
John

[Exsailor]

New glauras is where the brew spotted cow. Another way to
Make lemonade from lemons.

[TomHaycraft]

By the way, we are in Goshen, IN waiting to visit Reese tomorrow to have an engineer look into the continuing problems we have had with the Reese Sidewinder hitch. That's another story that I will relate after the visit, and after we return home.

Cheers,
John

John, your reference to problems with the Sidewinder. How did it go when at Reese. Having just installed one, that caught my attention.

Thanks in advance.

Tom

[mikell]

Bearing probably from China and now you know why American companies are bringing production back here. Recalls , lawsuits and bad PR pretty mych killed any savings they made.

Our company had a part that they saved .05$ on it sending it to China saved a lot of money till the recall then 57 MILLION DOLLARS later they had a change or heart

[Georgia Rambler]

Anything can fail reguardless of where it is made, BUT, Most stuff made in China is made there because of the low cost, and is lacking any Quality Control. Its cheaper to send out crap and just replace it with more crap later when it breaks, And one way to save money is to cut the amount of Hardening on the bearing surfaces (softer metal, wears faster, heat deteriorates the integrity).

The best thing you can do is to grease them very often on a trip, a couple of shots every 500 to 1000 miles will make a great difference, also use a good quality grease.

I do my best to Shop Local and Buy American!!!

[KenBob]

Anything can fail reguardless of where it is made, BUT, Most stuff made in China is made there because of the low cost, and is lacking any Quality Control. Its cheaper to send out crap and just replace it with more crap later when it breaks, And one way to save money is to cut the amount of Hardening on the bearing surfaces (softer metal, wears faster, heat deteriorates the integrity).

The best thing you can do is to grease them very often on a trip, a couple of shots every 500 to 1000 miles will make a great difference, also use a good quality grease.

I do my best to Shop Local and Buy American!!!

There will be a time where "a couple shots......" will eventually become a problem as sooner or later the grease will have no more space in the spindle area to fill. Path of least resistance is the seal, then the brake shoes. This all depends on how much grease is in the hub to begin with. Inspecting the bearings and adjusting the brakes on a preventative maintenance schedule will be better in the long run. JMHO

P.S. Do you have faith in the axle factory properly lubricating the bearings and adjusting the brakes?

[Georgia Rambler]

KenBob, you are exactly right. These days quality means nothing anymore, they would rather send out junk and meet a quota than high standards. I was simply saying that while on an extended trip "A LITTLE grease goes a LONG way"
And that not all grease is the same, to pick a good quality one.

[audio1der]

Is there a tutroial with pics anywhere, showing how to grease bearings (or anything else required on a TT)?