Wheel bearings for the Cougar 327 RES

[Camp I am]

Anyone know what size hubs the 2012 327RES has, or better yet the correct wheel bearing set & seal part numbers (Timken set #'s preferd). Mine's in storage so I can't take a tire off to look at the hub, and from past experiance it as PITA to cross the AL-KO & Hayes part numbers from the axle book. Real goal here is to get the right part #'s so I can buy a spare set of wheel bearings and seals. Did that for my last TT and saved my butt on a Sunday driving down to Branson MO when a bearing failed, without the spares I would have been staying overnight where it broke down. Like to have a few spares of things just in case

[hankaye]

Camp I am, Howdy;

Don't forget to get a set of bering races for them as well.
If the bering gets "trashed" it will in turn "trash" the race.

hankaye

[Camp I am]

Thanks Hankaye, yes that's what I meant by sets, thanks for clarifying

For those who have never had this fun on the road failure. The bearing races at least in my case welded onto the axle so you need to have bearings, races, and seals to do a road repair. Make sure you have a cold chisle and hammer, and some form of cutting tool like a hack saw or dremmel tool with cutting wheel with you as well as a file and some emery cloth for some minor metal work to clean it all up in addition to tools, de-greaser, and grease you would use to perform your normal bearing maintenance. Yes you can say do your yearly bearing maintenance and brake inspections and you won't have this problem but they can fail at any time. I do my own every spring and had done them all only a few months earlier and on a trip to Branson last year my wheel still went from looking like this.



To this! At usually the worst place and time you can think of. Notice hub is white hot and all plastic caps melted away.




Thus I want to have spares on board. Even with emergency road side service only a call away, if you dont have the parts your going to be stranded till the store opens.

[rjsurfer]

I can't help you part numbers but I hear where your coming from. When I changed out my bearings, races and seals I saved two sets to keep as a spares. They were in good enough shape to keep.

One tool I'll never leave home without is my Dremel...it's a portable workshop

Ron W.

[hankaye]

Howdy All;

One "Helpful hint" When you go to replace your berings and races try this;
if you haven't already ...

Get a container and place the races in it. cover the races with regular old
alcohol. Place the container into your freezer and leave it there while you jack up the trailer, remove the wheel and the old races. After you have the area for the race area cleaned up remove the races from the freezer, wipe them off and then insert them into the wheel. I generally use the old race as a striking surface to help seat the new one home. It is, after all, the correct diameter.
Simplely freezing the races takes to long and when using the alcohol you can actually get them colder... A trick we used to use when re-building aircraft tires.

hankaye

[JRTJH]

Hank, I've been doing that for years, like you, learned it in the aircraft maintenance part of my "previous life" I suppose I'd forgotten about even thinking about the steps or separating them out, it's pretty much automatic, get the wife's oldest rubbermaid container, half full of 90% alcohol, in with the races, to the freezer, unwrap the bearings, use the palm method to fill with new grease, wash hands, then go outside to jack up the wheels and get started with the "dirty part"

Thanks for the reminder, it's become so "automatic" that I don't/didn't even think about chilling the races as a separate part of the process...

[hankaye]

JRTJH, Howdy;

You must have one very understanding wife for her to allow you to grease the berings in doors.....

hankaye

[JRTJH]

Indoors??? Only if you can call my workbench in the garage as "indoors" I do get a lot of leeway (at times) but a can of bearing grease and a bunch of old newspapers on the dining room table??? Not a snowball's chance in H**L of that ever happening..... I think the first words I'd hear would go something like: "What do you think you're doing? Get that stinking stuff....." You probably have also heard the rest......

Good thing rascal doesn't talk much <G>

[outbackmac]

what good does a dremel do you on the side of the road?

[rjsurfer]

Originally Posted by outbackmac

what good does a dremel do you on the side of the road?

My Eu2000 powers my Dremel like a dream

Ron W.