Trailering Opinion: play/slop is what kills your bearings.

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Atticus
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Trailering Opinion: play/slop is what kills your bearings.

Post by Atticus »

I started to reply to PhishingNole's post from September but it felt like I was hijacking his thread so I am just posting my own thread. IN MY OPINION it's the play inside your wheel hub assembly that's more deadly to your trailering happiness than the tiny bits of salt water that may or may not get inside when you dunk the trailer. Because the wheels on the drivers side of your vehicle (and the port side of your vessel) spin CCwise this is especially prevalent on that side.

Once a year I would recommend taking the hub assembly apart to where you can adjust the castle nuts and then adjusting the "pre-load" tension on your castle nuts/bearings. Obviously then re-assembling afterwards. If you're not sure you want to go through all that: jack up one side of the trailer (I suggest driver's side - more problematic IMO) and check for wheel play. Grab your tire at 12 and 6 and shake. Do the same with your hands at 9 and 3. If you feel any wheel play: grab a beer and some rubber gloves, start disassembling until you can pull cotter pins (or flange washers) and turn the castle nut to adjust its tightness: "pre-load". This means spinning the wheel while it's off the ground and using a mallet to tap on the hub system until it can be pulled off by hand. YouTube ahead of time if this makes you uncomfortable. Bearing Buddy guys read below before committing to getting inside the hub. Once it's apart, use channel locks to gently tighten down the castle nut and re-insert the cotter pin (or flange washer). Of course the portion of your castle nut is going to cover the little hole for the cotter pin when the sungness is right where you want it. I would err on the side of snug (drivers side) and loose (passenger side). Check for wheel play while you're adjusting/making decisions. Then re-assemble.

While it's in the air, if you have a zerk fitting on the end of your spindle and you're not liking the grease you've encountered it's a great time to swap grease. With the wheel off the ground attach your hand powered grease gun to the zerk and spin the wheel with your off hand while you gently pump grease into the assembly using your other hand. Keep the wheel spinning while you're adding grease. That'll protect the rear seal. When you start having only fresh grease coming towards you: you're done. Tap the hub system back on. Use a block of 2x4 to help tap it flush.

The grease swap and replacing old, burnt/muddy grease with fresh grease is easier with the regular old EZ lube hub systems versus the bearing buddy systems. Also my opinion: I'd recommend regular old EZ lube hub system over bearing buddies because: 1) they're easier to tap on and off to check castle nut/bearing pre-load and 2) the zerk fitting on the end of the spindle lets you spin the tire and swap grease for fresh grease while you have it off the ground. I have dented up Bearing Buddies with a relatively soft, black rubber mallet and they don't look as pretty afterwards.

I am not a master trailer mechanic guru. There are old posts on this board where I asked what size trailer ball I should buy for the bumper on my old Jeep. My fishing buddies will certainly chime in here and confirm that I still break down to where I have to call them. However I own three trailers. My mechanic showed me the pre-load check and grease swap when he was at the house one day replacing a bearing race I'd melted onto a spindle. I recommend it going forward.
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Juan
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Re: Trailering Opinion: play/slop is what kills your bearings.

Post by Juan »

Great advice but I have to disagree with one point... imo the castle nut should be snugged down just enough to remove any play in hub assembly and if at that point it should cover the cotter pin hole, then (no matter which side) it should be backed off just enough to insert the cotter pin. If the castle nut is too tight, it causes friction and heat in the bearings.
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PhishingNole
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Re: Trailering Opinion: play/slop is what kills your bearings.

Post by PhishingNole »

I asked three mechanics and a trailer guy this question last year and all of them had the same answer, which is essentially what Juan said.

They believed heat was the biggest enemy to a hub, not a little play. Each of them preferred a hub with a little play over one that was tight, especially at highway speed.

I'm no expert, but I took their advice.

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Atticus
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Re: Trailering Opinion: play/slop is what kills your bearings.

Post by Atticus »

Juan wrote: March 15th, 2021, 2:23 pmGreat advice but I have to disagree with one point... imo the castle nut should be snugged down just enough to remove any play in hub assembly and if at that point it should cover the cotter pin hole, then (no matter which side) it should be backed off just enough to insert the cotter pin. If the castle nut is too tight, it causes friction and heat in the bearings.
Yep. That's fair. I may be living dangerously on the "remove play" side of things. Especially on the driver's side of the trailer. I agree we don't want to get rid of play/slop at the expense of introducing heat to the hub.

For whatever reason the cotter pin hole seems to be covered 85% of the time I do this. I did this operation (my way - tighter on L, looser on R sides) a few weekends back on my Bearing Buddy trailer. Then I took the boat to fill it with fuel. When I got back home I shot both hubs with an IR thermometer gun and they were within a degree or two of each other. Just FWIW.
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