Wheel bearings?!

tabiphile · June 2019

And if you are not one that regularly services vehicles/equipment, just a quick reminder to use a torque wrench to properly tighten the wheel lugs and to re-check them after 100 miles or so. You don't want to experience watching your wheel go whizzing by you at an intersection. That's not a good day.

BrianZ · June 2019

After getting a bit frustrated with my old & leaky mini type grease gun & frequently having to change the 3-oz cartridges, which also wastes grease, I got this full sized one to replace it..
STEINBRÜCKE Heavy Duty Professional Pistol Grip Grease Gun 6000 PSI - 18 inch Flex Hose https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07G51W1VN
It seems well made, and in particular has nice wide screw threads where the top of the grease tube screws into to head, so looks promising for not having the cross-threading issues I had with the old one.

However, what I received for the two standard size 14-oz tubes of Lucas Marine grease that I expected to be the same "lithium complex grease" I used last year, turned out to be "calcium sulfonate grease" and not lithium based grease. So, I've returned that & ordered this compatible Valvoline Cerulean brand lithium complex grease with 500° drop point rating..
Valvoline VV70133 14.1 Oz Heavy Duty Multi-Purpose Grease https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F9R94F6

Will give this grease and the new gun a try on our leaf trailer zerk fittings to see how well it works. One thing I like about the new gun (despite being big & heavy) is that it has a plunger rod which can lock to hold the spring retracted while screwing a new tube of grease onto the head, so it doesn't drive you "ber-zerk" trying to get an open full tube of grease screwed on before the spring loaded plunger inside starts pushing it out, like my old gun did. Unfortunately, the plunger rod does not appear to be retractable, so with a new grease tube installed it will be quite long & probably won't even fit in the storage cabinet where I kept my old one.
Everything's a tradeoff!

klenger · June 2019

Here's a link to the one I bought. I haven't used it much and not at all on the T@B but it seems to be a professional quality product.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002NYDZ8/

ScottG · June 2019

I don't know if one brand is a whole lot better than another, but I definitely recommend the pistol grip type like BrianZ and klenger showed, and personally prefer one with a short rigid pipe vs. a flexible hose. This arrangement allows you to easily add grease with one hand while rotating the wheel with the other (as directed in the EZ Lube instructions).

BrianZ · June 2019

@ScottG, mine came with both flex hose & 5" rigid pipe & two nozzles. My old one had the short rigid pipe, so that's what I'm accustomed to, but will give the hose a try to see how I like it. If the nozzle can keep a tight grip without holding it, then the flex tube may have the advantage of not putting extra stress on the zerk fitting if your arm gets tired of holding in a fixed position. Otherwise, I can switch back to rigid tube.

BrianZ · July 2019

Just a followup on the new grease gun..
It worked very well, with no problems changing cartridges. I first used it on our 5x10' leaf trailer with EZ-lube fittings & only issue was getting the darn nozzle removed from the zerk grease fitting. I had to use vice-grips and a lever bar at first, then later found a tip online to first angle it to one side then give it a twist. Sure enough, it finally popped right off without the lever bar, but still needed the vice grips to pull it off. This difficulty had been previously documented in Amazon reviews of my new grease gun, but otherwise it works great.

Later, I had the opportunity to get more practice on our cousin's T@B..
I greased their wheel bearings, which had never been done in the two years since purchased new; and I was very surprised to see almost no old grease coming out except a minuscule amount of red grease which was replaced by blue (we had significantly more, but did it a year ago for the first time - both T@Bs were purchased at same time from same dealer about two years ago).

Their wheel hubs were not hot or even very warm upon arrival after 4 hrs of driving, so must be ok I figure. Still, I had to wonder if old grease was pushing past the inner seal, but finally, with continuous turning of the wheel & slowly pushing in more grease, we saw the new blue grease coming out. At first it was just very dark & no distinctive color, until we noticed a bit of red, then the new blue grease, but not much old grease at all. We used about a full 14oz tube of Valvoline Cerulean lithium complex based grease, total for both wheels - half of a previously used one plus half of another.

So, I'm wondering whether previous reports of finding not much old grease upon first greasing after leaving the factory could be due to waiting too long, or if this could be another case of not enough grease used at the factory.

Sharon_is_SAM · July 2019

Brian, I think that there is limited grease used from the get go. Just about everyone has reported the same thing - the initial owner greasing requires a lot of grease before seeing the old grease. Same with us.

ScottG · July 2019

Someone in another discussion (@MuttonChops, maybe?) hypothesized that the initial lubing requires so much grease because the EZ-Lube passages needed to be filled before the old grease would start to emerge. The original bearings were probably packed prior to installation.

I.e., the large amount of grease reflects the first use of the EZ-Lube, not an insufficient amount of grease from the factory.

It seemed like a good explanation to me. It's hard to believe Dexter would be consistently shipping new axles under-lubricated.

wooper · July 2019

I'm going to have to learn to do this myself. Just bought a 2017 TaB 320s and have no clue as to the condition of the bearings or when they were last lubed or repacked...if ever. Taking it to a local guy repacking and lube, seals..for $120...replacing any bearing is $20 each. I called around and this was the best price I found and knew someone who had used them for something else and they liked them. Still, I'm sure I could figure it out for less...so much to learn...so little time.

Verna · July 2019

@wooper, $100+ that I spend every year for the Mayes Trailer Sales (utility trailer sales) is the best money I could spend. Harry does a marvelous job, checks my brakes and I have every bit of confidence in him.

If you don’t want to do it yourself, there is no reason for not finding a qualified person to do it for you at s reasonable price, and $120 is a reasonable price.

jpi68 · July 2021

Re-greased my 2019 T@B 400 wheel bearings yesterday. I used the method described in the manufactures video and others on Youtube, it went pretty slick (no pun intended). However, I used the wrong grease… I used the Multi-purpose Amber instead of the Multi-Vehicle High Temperature Red.. Ordered new grease and will have to do the whole process over again.. Will not be to hard to tell the when all the wrong grease is out since there is a dramatic difference in color. Each wheel took half of tube of the wrong grease, assuming the same with the new correct grease.. Darn it..

tabiphile · July 2021

jpi68 said:

Re-greased my 2019 T@B 400 wheel bearings yesterday. I used the Multi-purpose Amber instead of the Multi-Vehicle High Temperature Red..

Assuming that the "Amber" grease you used is the Valvoline grease? And that the "Red" is too? These are 100% interchangeable in that they are both lithium based. The red is a higher temp rated grease but the Amber should be just fine. If it were me I'd leave it alone and call it a day. Using that method the more grease you push through there the more you risk blowing the seals.
The concern about mixing greases with dissimilar carriers is that the soaps that bind the oils to solidify will cause the grease to fail. The grease will separate and run out. Lithium based grease is what you needed and used.
The red and amber are available off the shelf at any local auto shop. (NAPA, Autozone etc. Walmart etc. )

jpi68 · July 2021

@tabiphile Both greases were a Valvoline Lithium based grease. I spoke with one of Dexter’s engineers and his opinion was the same as yours, leave it alone, you are good. I think the red may have a little better temperature rating, however, the one that I used meets Dexter‘s specs. I was pretty scared for a while. One other thing that I discussed with the Dexter engineer was the possibility of blowing out the rear seal. He said it was possible but extremely rare. He said in the past several years he has maybe had one or two calls on that issue. Doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen, but if you follow their method it appears to be a very rare occurrence.

tabiphile · July 2021

jpi68 said:

One other thing that I discussed with the Dexter engineer was the possibility of blowing out the rear seal. He said it was possible but extremely rare. He said in the past several years he has maybe had one or two calls on that issue.

That is probably true. Speculation but Dexter probably hears about very few of these cases since it's not immediately obvious when the seals are blown and grease leaks into the brakes or pushes past the seal. You generally don't discover a blown seal until you pull the wheel and hub...something someone using the grease fittings is not as likely to do. If you use the grease gun, be very gingerly about pushing grease into the hub. A grease gun generates well above 10,000 psi. The rear seals are designed to withstand about 500 psi.

Dutch061 · July 2021

In my experience you will know if you have grease in with the brakes, they will be very grabby and the wheel will lock up easily during brake application.

Brad

gulfarea · July 2021

@BrianZ put the Dexter site video on and if you notice the grease turns from black to red which means that the contaminated grease is pushed out by the new red grease. I owned a garage for 31 years and can tell you unless your rear seal is very bad, grease will not push by the seal if you have a big opening for the grease pressure to escape. You can see how that works very well in the Dexter video. Yes a grease gun can push a lot of pressure but not into an open space. Try blowing up a beach ball with a big hole in it. Also I have seen dry caked grease in wheel bearings come in but when you do as Dexter says you put new red oil back into the grease. You can see the red oil if you buy a can of grease and open it up, that is what you are putting back in when you grease from the zert fitting WITH THE OPENING FOR THE GREASE PREASURE TO ESCAPE AND NOT BUILD UP PRESSURE TO PUSH GREASE BY THE REAR SEAL. Art

ChanW · July 2021

Thanks Art, good info. It makes me feel better about depending on the Dexter system.

tabiphile · July 2021

@gulfarea, with that amount of experience you know enough not to blow out the seals. The issue is when someone without that experience aggressively jacks grease into the wheel. The seal gets blown when someone unseats it by putting more pressure on it than it can withstand...and that happens. Your analogy about the grease not wanting to push through once the seal is blown is one I would take issue with. If you follow these threads folks are often pushing a full tube of grease into the hubs. Once the space has been filled with grease where do you suppose that grease goes? Right out of the seal.
@Dutch061, thanks for that detail...good to know in that I've been lucky and avoided the problem.

gulfarea · July 2021

@tabiphile If you watch the Dexter video you can clearly see that a lot of grease is coming out pushing the bad grease out first. Yes if the seal was already blown some could also escape into brake area but how did the seal get blown in the first place? A hand grease gun can produce a lot of pressure but no where near the volume to push out a seal because as you see in the video the excess grease has a way to escape. The seal can hold back more pressure than can be built up with a hand grease gun with the cap off. An air grease gun would even find it hard to make enough grease volume pressure with a hole as big as the Dexter to let it back out. Art

ChrisFix · July 2021

I used the ezlube today and discovered something interesting (to me at least!).
My 2021 T@B 400 was built in March 2020, purchased from Beckley's RV in early May, and picked up on June 1.
I'm the only one who has done any service work on it, but when I opened the grease cap on the first wheel I was going to grease, there was a fair amount of red grease in it already. I was expecting it to be dry, if it was never ez-lube'd before.
One pull of the grease gun, and old grease started coming out.
Went to do the other side, and same thing almost. This side didn't have the ezlube rubber grease cap, but the hub area had lots of red grease, like it had been serviced already, and old grease came out with one pull of the grease gun.

The only thing I can think of is the Beckley's serviced the hubs as part of their dealer prep, although I can't think why that would be.
Anyone else run across something like this. Most of the stories I've been reading is how much grease you need to pump before anything comes out (due to the dry passages of a new, never ezlube'd hub).

N7SHG_Ham · July 2021

Sounds like Beckley did a service, missing rubber plug would be one indicator. Those plugs are inexpensive and readily available, I highly recommend you get one for the missing one, otherwise your bearings are basically open to the elements, dirt and water on that side.

Verna · July 2021

A few years ago, Dexter missed greasing a few of the T@B bearings. It could be that Beckley’s takes it upon themselves to not trust completely, but to make sure their end customer receives a thoroughly inspected camper.

I always have bearings serviced after a few hundred miles when I have the first brake adjustment. Some think I’m wasting money. I feel it’s money well spent for my piece of mind.

ChrisFix · July 2021

N7SHG_Ham said:

Sounds like Beckley did a service, missing rubber plug would be one indicator. Those plugs are inexpensive and readily available, I highly recommend you get one for the missing one, otherwise your bearings are basically open to the elements, dirt and water on that side.

They are already in the mail. Found a trailer supply that carried the correct OEM Dexter plugs for $1.50 each which I think I'll prefer to the generic ones available through Amazon or etrailer.

ChrisFix · July 2021

One other thing I wanted to mention is that I purchased and used this grease gun for the ez-lube bearing maintenance:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07SVGHNPV/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The LockNLube nozzle on this is worth the price of admission, but the entire grease gun is really nice quality and worked perfectly, plus has a nice storage trick with a place to attach the nozzle for storage. And the LockNLube nozzle is also available as a stand-alone product that can be added to any grease gun.
Just wanted to mention it in case anyone is looking to buy a grease gun for this bearing maintenance. There are many to choose from, but the lower price ones seem to have a lot of potential usability issues.

jpi68 · July 2021

Greased my dexter easy lube bearings this morning. Replaced the amber grease with the high temperature red. Worked pretty easy… Thanks for everybody that commented here.

Slackers · July 2021

We did the EZ-lube method for ours last month prior to an 4,000 mile adventure. The driver side required a several pumps to start the re-lube. The passenger side just a few. There was a tell-tell sign of lube on the EZ-lube nozzles from some prior effort--from our dealer.

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