Wheel bearings

[Mroe67]

Read a few posts about wheels heating up, and some fires resulting from wheel bearing issues. With that in mind, how often should you check and re-pack 5th wheel, wheel bearings?

[cookinwitdiesel]

I am also curious to learn more here. I am no mechanic, I just don't mind taking apart stuff and doing my own work.

[Mroe67]

Yah, i’m not to worried at the moment, as we probably only have 1000 miles on ours if that, but want to know “when”! To do the check and potentially rebuild them. Done bearing several times, so I don’t see it being to difficult.

[JRTJH]

I check/repack my bearings every fall before storage. Last year I repacked them all, changed out the seals and all was good.

Fast forward to this spring, we made a 6000 mile trip to Las Vegas, came back through Utah, Colorado, towing in the mountains on some pretty rough "winter heave" roads. After returning from that trip, we put about 1500 miles on the trailer with local trips. This past weekend, we towed 160 miles away for a family campout near Flint. As we were driving through the campground entry gate (3-4 MPH) in the side mirror, I noticed the side of the trailer bulge, immediately slammed on brakes and stopped the rig. The left (driver's side) rear wheel and hub had separated from the spindle.

So, even with annual maintenance and "known good performance, after the maintenance has been done (no mistakes made by me as evidenced by 7500 miles of towing after the maintenance), things happen.....

I'd suggest periodic inspection of the wheel/hub by jacking it off the ground and looking for lateral movement, funny sounds and/or evidence of abnormal tire wear. Admittedly, I didn't check this before this past tow and I don't know if I'd have found a problem or if it all happened the last 10 miles of this trip.... But, I do know that if I'd have checked, I'd have known it was/wasn't a problem last Thursday.

Check tires/wheels periodically and check/relube bearings/change seals at least every 2 years, preferably every year.

[Northofu1]

Whatever you do, when packing bearings. Make sure you leave some room in the hub for expansion. When the grease heats up and liquifies it can do immeasurable damage.

[Gary4]

I would also recommend using good quality wheel bearings and grease.

[bobbecky]

When we lost an outer bearing a few years ago, I had just repacked the bearings less than two months earlier, and the bearings were still well greased, both inner and outer when the bearing failed. They were the imported bearings, and had been on very rough roads in West Texas, but still no excuse for a bearing failure. When my annual service time came around, I had purchased a full set of USA Timken bearings and races and also got Timken grease to use. Didn't want to take any chances. When we recently upgraded to disc brakes, I requested the installation of Timkens instead of the Chinese bearings that would have been installed.

[travelin texans]

Don't be tempted to use the EZ lube zerks to add grease!! That's good for only one thing.... blowing out the seals & filling the brake drums with grease.
HAND PACK ONLY, this gives you the best opportunity to inspect all parts annually.

[tech740]

Originally Posted by travelin texans

Don't be tempted to use the EZ lube zerks to add grease!! That's good for only one thing.... blowing out the seals & filling the brake drums with grease.
HAND PACK ONLY, this gives you the best opportunity to inspect all parts annually.

This is true. My last 5er I used them in and then changed all the brakes shortly after. I had grease in 2 of the 4. An annual re grease is what I do but I am no more than 4K miles a year. I see it as cheap insurance because grease is not expensive and 4 seals are not expensive either.

[larryflew]

We really only use our Alpine for winder trip other than maybe a weekend or 2 in summer. We basically do MN to TX to AZ and back. I repack every other year after having one of those fires OP was mentioning. Never felt or saw a thing and a car pulled up along side to tell us we where on fire. I believe that was an axle problem rather than bearing problem from what the guy that rebuilt our axle said.

[CWtheMan]

We have had our one owner trailer 16 years and it has in excess of 200,000 road miles. It has the original equipment axles and brakes. I do the axle bearings about every 10,000 miles unless I've observed some overheating from excessive breaking - steep grades. Remember, the race is as important as the bearing. Clean and carefully inspect for cracks.

Keep in mind I'm an experienced mechanic and have hand packed/repacked thousands of wheel bearings.

[Mad Cow]

Yeah, I am not into the EZ-Lube idea. I prefer to take things apart, clean everything up and inspect, and hand pack with fresh grease. I know it is done right, grease distributed evenly, and the hub mounted correctly and spindle nut at just the right setting. Really doesn't take all that much effort and time as long as you have everything you need before you start the job.

[mfifield01]

My rule is to do them every other year. For me, that's about 10,000 miles. After the first two years, I replaced the bearings/races with Timken (USA).

I had a lot of bearing issues with my previous boat trailer. I was replacing those every 3 years. The last time I replaced those bearings, the right side had almost ceased. The boat trailer is in a harsher environment, but this made me fall on a 2 year repack schedule.

[RickReichert]

I joined the "your trailer is on fire" club last week on the Seward Highway along the Turnagain Sound south of Anchorage. I'd stopped to allow traffic to pass and a guy pulled in behind me and ran up yelling that my trailer was on fire. Smoke and flames were roiling out of the space between the backing plate and the drum of the right rear wheel on my trailer. Fortunately I quickly got the fire put out with my fire extinguisher. The last outside inch of the cast iron hub had broken off, the bearings were gone, the brake shoes burned off, the magnet wires melted. A total mess. I'm not sure what happened, as I had just had all 4 complete brake assemblies including backing plates, magnets, brakes, drums, bearings, races, etc. replaced at an RV repair shop in January. And I'd checked the bearing play myself right before leaving on this trip. The trailer only had about 5,000 miles on it since all 4 brake / bearing sets were replaced.
Fortunately I had all of the tools needed to do the repair, and Six Robblees RV parts in Anchorage was only about a half-hour away and still open, but getting ready to close. They even offered to wait until I arrived to make sure I got the parts. They had all of the parts needed to replace everything. I'm now planning to check bearing play every 1000 miles of towing. I think this was probably premature bearing failure and could have been found sooner with more frequent checking. It's easy enough to jack up each wheel and check for play. Much easier to replace a bearing and seal than replacing a complete set of burned, broken, sooty, greasy, ruined parts on the side of the road. And if this had happened on one of those twisty, narrow, mountain roads, who knows what the outcome would have been?

[Rbpinney]

Yearly is a good rule of thumb. If you have a older unit, consider just replacing the bearings/races and seals. They really are not that expensive. I did that on our 2012 Keystone 5th wheel before we hit the road full timing.
If you will be looking for someone to do that for you and the RV shops in your area are backed up or want to light you up for a bunch of $$, look for a regular trailer dealer/repair shop. Horse trailer, utility trailer, RV. A trailer is a trailer. They do that sort of thing all the time and are usually more responsive and cheaper.

[Rbpinney]

Forgot to add, I have a laser temperature gun and check the temp on the tires and hubs every stop when we are traveling. Gives me a chance to walk around a bit.

[mfifield01]

I just looked on Amazon. The Timken bearing sets are on sale. For all the bearings, races, and seals it's $62 right now for my axles.

[Larry4545]

Do you guys repack your vehicle bearings also. Camper trailers or not boat trailers. Those with grease fittings 2-3 pumps once a year is plenty. I would and did check adjustment when you first get your rig. One wheel was way to tight, backed off the wheel nut some and have been good to go ever since.

[chuckster57]

Originally Posted by Larry4545

Do you guys repack your vehicle bearings also. Camper trailers or not boat trailers. Those with grease fittings 2-3 pumps once a year is plenty. I would and did check adjustment when you first get your rig. One wheel was way to tight, backed off the wheel nut some and have been good to go ever since.

Most newer trucks have a sealed hub unit, so front bearings aren’t “serviceable” per se. tears require lots of work and as long as the rest end has the proper fluid/amount, they should be good to go.

Using the zerk fitting on trailer axles let’s you pump grease past the seal and contaminate your shoes and magnet. You won’t know it until your on the road and then it’s too late to do anything about it. I never advocate using it and during a walkthrough actually tell newbies NOT to use it.

[JRTJH]

Being a "victim" of EZ Lube contamination, I can say that spending 3 days in Dickinson, North Dakota, waiting for brake parts to come UPS (nobody in town stocks trailer parts and the nearest place that does (that we could find) was in Bismark, 100 miles "back". And, they said they'd have to match them up, but thought they had 4 in stock, and they didn't have the replacement magnets, so I wouldn't be able to actually "fix" the brakes, just patch them up. So, waiting for UPS in the middle of NOWHERE on the side of the road (actually in a campground) with reservations in Cody that were "clicking away at our vacation" is NOT the fun way to spend travel time.

After cleaning all the hubs, installing new brake assemblies, packing the bearings and installing new seals, we were "on the road again".... Total time, 3 days in an expensive "hole in the wall campground" while paying for "a very expensive site" that we weren't using, parts and about 10 rolls of paper towels and 5 cans of brake cleaner later, I estimated that using the EZ Lube system actually saved me about an hour but cost me well over $750. Even at my "then working labor rate" I seldom made $750 an hour, so...

Doing the math, the EZ Lube system "sucks for saving anything"..... YMMV