Offshoreonly.com - Wheel bearing grease to oil conversion ?

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Sydwayz (Post 2806628)

One thing that is overlooked is how the Castle Nut is retained. I prefer the old fashioned cotter-pin though the spindle method, but most of the new trailers with grease-zerks in the end of the spindle can't use this method. They have these Axle Tang Washers where you bend one tab over into the Castle Nut opening. I think they suck, but what can you do?

http://www.rockettrailers.com/PartsB...g%20Washer.jpg

You can break off those tabs with your Crescent wrench, and so can a little pressure/twist from a heated bearing. As soon as that tab is gone, your wheel will be gone within a mile.

Next time I redo bearings I am going to double up on the Axle Tang Washer.

It's alway nice to be able to doulble up on the ''tang''.:evilb:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sydwayz (Post 2806623)

Try term in search "oil bath".

http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/t...ath-axles.html

http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/t...-spindles.html

http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/t...rotectors.html

http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/t...questions.html

Brian thank you again,
Those were great threads and answered all all my questions, I just used the wrong search words. NO oil bath for me
Randy

My pleasure Randy.

And Roger; the only thing better than Double Tang is Triple Tang+. :D :D

I have a Skater trailer with oil in the hubs.As long as your not going to dunk it they work great.I have installed new everything seals bearings covers and they still get milky after 1 trip under water..Im going to grease.

You will almost always get water in the oil hubs, it happens with big trucks everytime the doopey driver go through a flood and here's why.

The grease hubs do not have vents to let pressure out. When you look at a typical grease hub it has a sealed outer bearing cover like on the front end of a car. Grease seals are generally a non-unitized seal and any pressure build up can escape through the seal itself.

With oil hubs you have a vent because most have unitized type oil seals and those seals are non-breathable, there is a vent hole on the cap or cap plug to releive pressure as to not damage the seals.

When you put the oil hub trailer in water, even if the axles are only 1 ft under water the pressure outside the cap is greater than inside and water will leak in through the vent.

Also, as you know when there is any bearing temperature at all, the cooling of the hub in water creates a contraction which draws in water. The grease seal because of the double lip design will hold the water off more so than the simple hole in the rubber hubcap of an oil hub.

These factors draw the water in the hub and it is allmost impossiable to stop that.

The seal of the oil hub is far superior to that of a grease hub and aside from that vent slot oil hubs are perfectly fine if not better to go underwater than grease hubs because of seal design itself.