Wheel bearing grease to oil conversion ?
 

Anyone tried it?? It seems like the way to go, Trucks and larger trailers use oiled wheel bearings rather than grease, simple visual inspection to see if water contaminated or low on oil. I found this link ....

http://www.trailerandtruckparts.com/...ls-_p_350.html

West marine has it t,o this place was cheaper

Randy

Good question, I own Prevost tour busses and in 2007 they changed over from oil hubs to a sealed none serviceable grease unit. Now we never see water and stuff like a boat trailer but the sealed units have been great for 200,000 miles so far knock on wood.

It's been talked about here before. Do a search.

General consensus was NOT do to this on trailers that are dipped in the water.

I think they are going back to sealed bearings for most commercial applications. If the oil leaks it's not long before the wheel seizes or twists off the stub. Greased bearings have a much more gradual failure.

Brian
Yes I always do a search first .... tried wheel bearings , trailer bearings, oil trailer etc. I even tried google to find the oil kits. But
thank you on the summary, that was what I was looking for...

Randy

The reason for asking was when they were hauling my Awesome they lost the center wheel on the right side some where in the mountains of Pennsylvania. The boat made the rest of the trip on 5. The wheel bearings were greased and check before before the trip (not by me). I have had problems w/wheel bearings (I am analabout greasing and checking wheel bearings) just looking for a better system....
Randy

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

Oil is better than grease on terms of lubrication and cooling, but obviously harder to keep in, and faster to fail in case of a leak. (The Penske Racing truck fire last summer was due to a bearing fire.)

The kits that I saw to convert trailer hubs had a clear cap so you could inspect the oil. There's no reason they shouldn't work well, as long as all your seal surfaces are good, but that's where dunking the trailers causes problems.....

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:

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.