Axle Bearings

[Abear79]

My Gateway is 2 years old. When should you repack the wheel bearings? I know there are alemite fittings on the bearing caps like a buddy bearing, but I know they are not a buddy bearings. Or just put a couple of squirts of high-temp grease in it every year?

 

[jassson007]

I had mine done at 2 years but still looked good. Really depends on your mileage though.


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[Abear79]

I had mine done at 2 years but still looked good. Really depends on your mileage though.


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around 4500

 

[jassson007]

around 4500

That's probably about close to what I had on mine.


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[brianlajoie]

Do you track the mileage? I had about 11k miles and it was 1.5 years old before I had the repacking done before a big trip this February and the grease was black with some red, but in decent condition. The bearings were perfect. Discussing the condition with the rv tech as I watched him repack the bearings: we agreed that I could go a little longer before my next repacking.

I would think that a combination of miles, age and where you store it would play into your decision. The manual will say every year or 10k miles. Be careful if you add grease through the cap. Excess grease or high pressure will cause the grease to leak out of the bearings potentially getting on your brakes. I would not trade adding grease through the cap for repacking the bearings. Use your judgement

 

[Abear79]

Do you track the mileage? I had about 11k miles and it was 1.5 years old before I had the repacking done before a big trip this February and the grease was black with some red, but in decent condition. The bearings were perfect. Discussing the condition with the rv tech as I watched him repack the bearings: we agreed that I could go a little longer before my next repacking.

I would think that a combination of miles, age and where you store it would play into your decision. The manual will say every year or 10k miles. Be careful if you add grease through the cap. Excess grease or high pressure will cause the grease to leak out of the bearings potentially getting on your brakes. I would not trade adding grease through the cap for repacking the bearings. Use your judgement[/QUOTE

I rather not use the alemite fittings. I am planning on repacking myself now. I had 2 blowouts last week so at some point this month I will do it. Thanks for the info.

I keep my rv in a 30x60 building I camped Texas to Florida and between.

 

[JohnD]

If you are paying for an extended warranty on your trailer, the warranty most likely will EXPECT you to have it done once per year . . . even if it doesn't need it!

And make sure you have documentation to prove it!

Don't ask me how I know . . .

 

[rxbristol]

I did mine with less than a 1K miles and had a bad bearing and race. I upgraded the bearings and races to Timken. Dexter paid for the parts and labor thanks to Jim B. contacting them.

 

[Birchwood]

We travel with our Landmark each year from Canada to Florida.I have had the bearings repacked every two years but now that the unit is older I will redo them yearly.You can truly only see the condition of your bearings after cleaning so just adding grease may not be a good idea.

 

[sengli]

This is my second fiver. My first unit was an elkridge, and we bought new, as it was dealer left over. Anyway my brakes never worked right. So when I took it apart to inspect why, I found someone had used the grease thru the hub routine and the grease had blown by the seals and was all over the inside of the brake drums. I have a boat so using the alemite fittings seems like a great idea, but my fishing boat trailer doesnt have brakes! You would have expected the grease to come out the front of the hub, but it didnt when who ever crammed more grease in mine.
On my current unit I waited a couple of years to manually repack the bearings. We dont go many miles with our unit. Its a pain due to the heavy trailer, and the drums are also heavy. I replaced the seals, as my bearings looked good. But a bearing failure on the roadside is NOT acceptable either.

 

[Abear79]

This is my second fiver. My first unit was an elkridge, and we bought new, as it was dealer left over. Anyway my brakes never worked right. So when I took it apart to inspect why, I found someone had used the grease thru the hub routine and the grease had blown by the seals and was all over the inside of the brake drums. I have a boat so using the alemite fittings seems like a great idea, but my fishing boat trailer doesnt have brakes! You would have expected the grease to come out the front of the hub, but it didnt when who ever crammed more grease in mine.
On my current unit I waited a couple of years to manually repack the bearings. We dont go many miles with our unit. Its a pain due to the heavy trailer, and the drums are also heavy. I replaced the seals, as my bearings looked good. But a bearing failure on the roadside is NOT acceptable either.

Thanks, I'm looking in buying some 6 ton jack stands to do this and if for some reason we don't have anything planned for a couple of months I can get the weight off the tires.

- - - Updated - - -

This is my second fiver. My first unit was an elkridge, and we bought new, as it was dealer left over. Anyway my brakes never worked right. So when I took it apart to inspect why, I found someone had used the grease thru the hub routine and the grease had blown by the seals and was all over the inside of the brake drums. I have a boat so using the alemite fittings seems like a great idea, but my fishing boat trailer doesnt have brakes! You would have expected the grease to come out the front of the hub, but it didnt when who ever crammed more grease in mine.
On my current unit I waited a couple of years to manually repack the bearings. We dont go many miles with our unit. Its a pain due to the heavy trailer, and the drums are also heavy. I replaced the seals, as my bearings looked good. But a bearing failure on the roadside is NOT acceptable either.

Thanks, I'm looking in buying some 6 ton jack stands to do this and if for some reason we don't have anything planned for a couple of months I can get the weight off the tires.

- - - Updated - - -

This is my second fiver. My first unit was an elkridge, and we bought new, as it was dealer left over. Anyway my brakes never worked right. So when I took it apart to inspect why, I found someone had used the grease thru the hub routine and the grease had blown by the seals and was all over the inside of the brake drums. I have a boat so using the alemite fittings seems like a great idea, but my fishing boat trailer doesnt have brakes! You would have expected the grease to come out the front of the hub, but it didnt when who ever crammed more grease in mine.
On my current unit I waited a couple of years to manually repack the bearings. We dont go many miles with our unit. Its a pain due to the heavy trailer, and the drums are also heavy. I replaced the seals, as my bearings looked good. But a bearing failure on the roadside is NOT acceptable either.

Thanks, I'm looking in buying some 6 ton jack stands to do this and if for some reason we don't have anything planned for a couple of months I can get the weight off the tires.

- - - Updated - - -

This is my second fiver. My first unit was an elkridge, and we bought new, as it was dealer left over. Anyway my brakes never worked right. So when I took it apart to inspect why, I found someone had used the grease thru the hub routine and the grease had blown by the seals and was all over the inside of the brake drums. I have a boat so using the alemite fittings seems like a great idea, but my fishing boat trailer doesnt have brakes! You would have expected the grease to come out the front of the hub, but it didnt when who ever crammed more grease in mine.
On my current unit I waited a couple of years to manually repack the bearings. We dont go many miles with our unit. Its a pain due to the heavy trailer, and the drums are also heavy. I replaced the seals, as my bearings looked good. But a bearing failure on the roadside is NOT acceptable either.

Thanks, I'm looking in buying some 6 ton jack stands to do this and if for some reason we don't have anything planned for a couple of months I can get the weight off the tires.

 

[Westwind]

If your near a Harbor Freight their jack stands are reasonably priced, I bought two and jacked once side at a time and also used the two pneumatic jacks along with blocking the side I was working on. By the way the truck was also hitched to the trailer. It doesn't hurt to be overly cautious.
I removed the bearings on mine at about 12K, cleaned examined the bearings, which were in good shape, and repacked, replaced the seals, cleaned my self adjusting brakes by lightly sanding the drums and pad with a very very fine sandpaper and sprayed with a brake cleaner and made sure everything worked. Our traveling is done on major highways so not alot of start and stopping everything looked really good. As everything gets older I might do it every two years, but I definitely will check suspension components every year or more.

 

[Bob&Patty]

All good suggestions.....but DO NOT jack up the trailer unless you are hooked up to your truck.

 

[Rollin_Free]

All good suggestions.....but DO NOT jack up the trailer unless you are hooked up to your truck.

I also drop the landing gear to stabilize the trailer as well as connect to TV. If that much weight gets started moving it's hard to stop it. Since your going to be under the rig the more secure it is the safer it will be for you. Just IMHO not overkill.

 

[Abear79]

Thank all of you for the great advice. I forgot about harbor freight. So one more question. Once I have the coach up on jack stands level and work is complete. Would it be ok then to unhitch to keep on stands if its a couple of months between trips?

 

[cookie]

I don't see a problem leaving it up on stands, but there really is no benefit to doing that.

Peace
Dave

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[sengli]

The only issue could be over time that amount of weight could result in a crushing of the axles tubes, where supported by the jack stands. When I did my repacking, I did one wheel at a time. I used a 20 ton bottle jack to lift each wheel. I tried to use my larger car hydraulic jack and I couldnt lift it easily, even though that jack was rated at 3 tons. My coach weighs like 12K lbs.

 

[Abear79]

Yes, the more I think about leaving the RV on stands, its not a good idea. Plus I am upgrading my tires this week. Going with prometer load rating G. I hear good things about them. I was just worried about the towmeter tires I am taking off this weekend anyway. Well the last 2 that didn't blow up on me.

 

[brianlajoie]

The only issue could be over time that amount of weight could result in a crushing of the axles tubes, where supported by the jack stands. When I did my repacking, I did one wheel at a time. I used a 20 ton bottle jack to lift each wheel. I tried to use my larger car hydraulic jack and I couldnt lift it easily, even though that jack was rated at 3 tons. My coach weighs like 12K lbs.

In my opinion and the way I lift my trailer is from the frame not the axle. My level up system is connected to the frame and if you block up the trailer, the frame is used.

 

[Bogie]

The first time I re-packed my bearings, following Heartland's instructions, I jacked up the frame and used cribbing and jack stands. Though hooked up to the TV, I didn't like working under that much weight, especially suspended that high off the ground on jack stands. Though I have spent many hours under cars suspended that way, I just didn't feel comfortable. Also having only one floor jack meant I could only jack one side at a time and I was concerned about twisting the frame.

That experience just gave me another reason to add a level up system (Ground Control). It's attached to the frame, lifts the rig without any effort and I feel very safe doing it.

If I still have to lift one or more of the tires a small amount, I use a bottle jack with an axle hanger bracket welded to the top. Since most of the weight is off the axels, it requires very little force to lift them.



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