Free Upgrade to Oil Bath Hubs With MorRyde Disk Brakes Upgrade

[wdk450]

Gang:
I took the Bighorn in for yet another round of suspension work (the equalizers wouldn't sit flat, the ends of the springs rubbed on the frame - all after $1400 of repairs and spring replacements by "Mobile Outfitters" techs at the Goshen Rally in June). That got fixed by installing yet another set of springs with the RIGHT eyelet spacing. That has nothing to do with this post other than it was the reason the Bighorn went to a servicer. No, I wanted to relate what my servicer of 40 years experience told me about my hubs - He said that they were oil bath type hubs!!!! They have the plastic filler cap and fill port like oil bath hubs do. BUT, there was no oil in the hubs, just grease on the bearings as normal. I had my hubs greased before I left for Goshen/Elkhart, so where did the new hubs come from??? Then it dawned on me - MorRyde must have installed them as part of the disk brakes upgrade I got done the week after the Goshen rally. I called MorRyde and their tech support guy said "Yes, we install Kodiak hubs as part of the disk brake upgrade", but he was sure they weren't oil bath type hubs. Double checking with my trailer tech I got "I know oil bath hubs when I see them".
So I go to the internet, and look up Kodiak trailer hubs for 7K axles. Here is the link: http://www.kodiaktrailer.com/images/pdf/2011-cat-7000-7200lb.pdf Look on page 4 and all of the hubs have the oil fill cap!!! There is even some fine print about it. Another part listed was the clear fill cap "For Kodiak Disk Brake Assemblies" ( http://www.trailerpartsdepot.com/itemdesc.asp?ic=8K-OBC&eq=&Tp= ).
Some more internet search found me Kodiak Oil Bath Hub upgrade kits, that consist of the end/fill caps, special double lipped seals, and the oil. http://www.trailerpartsdepot.com/items.asp?Cc=HUB-O&parts=Trailer+Hub+Oil+Bath+Caps
The text says "Convert from messy grease to oil useing your existing hub." So it seems to me that Kodiak's take on Oil bath hubs is that they are just standard hubs (and bearings) with the special seals, cap and oil. And MorRyde installs these Kodiak hubs as part of the disk brake kit.

The bottom line is I think that any of us who have had the MorRyde disk brake upgrade, can clean the grease out of our bearings and hubs, make sure to install a new double lipped seal from Kodiak, and fill the hubs up with the prescribed oil.

Oil bath hubs are offered as factory equipment on only 1 high-end fifth wheel I know of. These are the type of hubs used on long haul semi trailers.

 

[porthole]

Bill,

MOR/ryde has been using the oil bath hubs for many years now. When mine were installed I never took notice if the seals were the oil bath type.

I had actually planned on removing the grease, cleaning everything up and making the bearings "oilers".
Got the seals, enough Lucas oil bath lube (good price at Dover Race Week) and planned on doing it this season.

Never got to it before Goshen.

Now, after seeing what my bearings looked like after 4.5 years and 20K, I'm glad I didn't bother to go through the trouble.


MOR/ryde techs do a great job and my bearings were well packed.

BTW, the caps are fragile, be careful when manhandling the tires. I cracked one of the hubs this spring..

 

[wdk450]

My thought on the disk brake upgrade hubs is that if Kodiak intended them to be oil hubs, and capped them with the oil filler seal, then they should supply oil double lip seals (and even a bottle of the oil) with each hub. But maybe, for some reason, they don't do this. Again, the writer guy at MorRyde was SURE they were NOT oil type hubs.
I think MorRyde ought to embrace this, and offer to install the right seals and fill the hubs with oil during disk brake installation. Supposedly oil bath hubs run much cooler than greased bearing hubs. Kodiak had a guarantee somewhere against them losing oil (I would assume this is a guarantee on the seals and intact fill caps - I have heard the biggest hazard with these is breaking the oil cap).

Question: If I go to oil bath lubrication, is the regularly scheduled bearing maintenance no longer needed??

 

[cookie]

I recently saw a bunch of DRV coaches that had the oil bath on their units.
Three of the eight oil bath systems I saw on those rigs were leaking.
Oil bath is not for me on an RV.
I will stick with grease.

Peace
Dave


Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 4

 

[porthole]

Question: If I go to oil bath lubrication, is the regularly scheduled bearing maintenance no longer needed??

I suppose that would depend on the several things.
1st, as I mentioned above, I had every intention of switching to oil this season. How well of a job that was done from the initial installation and how easy it was to break a cap has me re-thinking the oil bath.
My tire/wheel combo are 95 pounds each. So now I am more careful taking them on and off.

If you do the oil and break a cap on the road, and don't have a spare, your stuck. Caps are cheap, under $4. I have a full set in the trailer.
Break a cap with grease (quality grease) and you could keep going.

As to bearing maintenance schedule? Done properly, quality grease and bearings, I see no reason to be cleaning and repacking every year. The hubs are no different then automobiles. Although in the dearler service departments "bearing clean and repack" was pushed as a recommended PM, it was nothing more then an up sell.

I have seen many cars and trucks north of a 100k in miles with front wheel bearings that had never been apart and still looked good. So for me, I seriously doubt I will be in the hubs of the Cyclone for the remaining time we have it.

But to your question, other then a visual inspection of oil level and color, there is no maintenance.

As to Cookie's comment, I looked at every DRV that was at Goshen during my recent trip, probably 25 in all. Although none had actual leaks, since they were new, there were several that had evidence of seepage.
So leakage is a potential issue. On OTR trucks the hubs are visible, so they can be inspected everyday. Our hubs require taking the wheels off to see the cap. Trailers with oil may not present themselves untill you can see the results of a leaked hub.

 

[wdk450]

Porthole:
Thanks for your fine input. I will probably be re-thinking the move to oil hubs.

 

[jmgratz]

I trust the Mor-Ryde dudes. They have been doing what they do for a long time. On our previous 5er we had the Disc brakes, IS with never lube bearings. Never thought about them being 'oilers'. But never had an issue with the bearings and never had to grease them. My thinking at this time is as soon as we get the money together we will change out to IS, Disc brakes and never lube on this coach.

 

[porthole]

Jim, when the time comes I'd do some research on the never lubes.

All my checking, which started with a pallet bin of failed never lube bearings at MOR/ryde, lead me to believe the Never Lubes are OK with lighter trailers. But when you get into the Toy Hauler, Big Horn Landmark class, conventional bearings are better.

My crude graphic from a discussion sometime ago.

Never lube on the left. The actual bearing packs have the bearings side by side.
My concern is the load on the bearings. Not so much driving straight but more to do with the lateral loads. Who knows how many tons of load are exerted on a highway speed bend in the road.

 

[jmgratz]

Jim, when the time comes I'd do some research on the never lubes.

All my checking, which started with a pallet bin of failed never lube bearings at MOR/ryde, lead me to believe the Never Lubes are OK with lighter trailers. But when you get into the Toy Hauler, Big Horn Landmark class, conventional bearings are better.

My crude grafic from a discussion sometime ago.

Thanks.. I will. But I will say we never had any issues with our previous 5er which was a 2007 Landmark Golden Gate. It weighed out at roughly 16500. So with this one being approximately the same I don't see why it would be a problem. But sometimes you have to trust the products that are installed on your coach. Of all of the products on this RV and companies which supply RV items I do trust Mor-Ryde. Also Mor-Ryde stands behind their products. A class act company. I had heard though that there was a batch of never-lube bearings that had issues. But we have had never lube bearings on several Ford trucks and driven them well over 100000 miles without problems.

 

[porthole]

It may indeed have been a bad batch. The pallet bin of bad bearings was a t MOR/ryde when we were discussing my initial install in July 2009. I didn't need much convincing from Ben once I saw the bin.

 

[mattpopp]

Oil bath isn't worth the trouble to upgrade. Every one of y'all's TV and daily drivers front wheels are packed with grease. How many of y'all have issues with them?


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