How to grease my trailer bearings

[SilentSeven]

Wow. Lot's of rich information here. Here's a simple down and dirty way to triage your stuff. First, top off each buddy with a few grease pumps (using marine grease of course) ...then....

1. Carefully inspect the inside portion of the wheel hub for grease. It should be clean with no grease around the hub or on the brakes. If you see grease, the inside hub seal has failed and needs to be replaced. This is a common failure as replacing the seals is a messy PITA. If the seal is no good, the grease you pump into the zirk just comes out the back. Also, if you have grease that's leaked onto the brake disks, the brakes are not working (much...if at all). You can drive it but keep the distances short.

2. Jack up each side of the trailer. With the wheels off the ground, grab the top/bottom and try to shake the wheel. You should have very little to no play. If you have decent play (the wheel clunks), then the castle nut is loose and needs a tighten. Then spin each wheel. It should spin pretty freely and not make much growling noise. it will make some. Anything that sounds like gravel in a clothes dryer means the bearing and races are pretty shot. Again, you can drive it but keep the distances short.

3. See if the brakes are working. If the reservoir is dry, well you already have a problem. Lets assume the reservoir has fluid. Connect the trailer and drive around. If the coupler bangs on start/stop, something is not right - could need bleeding or maybe the coupler master cylinder is shot. Let's assume that's not happening. Drive around for a bit more and get out and inspect each wheel disk with a flashlight. They should all be shiny - inside and outside surfaces. This means the pads are grabbing. Rusty disks = that caliper is not working. Any problems here mean you'll need some brake skills and special tools to sort out...or a visit to a shop. Driving without working brakes is a bad idea...just try one panic stop and you'll find out.

You can get away with a lot of marginal stuff if the trips are short and you stay in town. If you plan to do over the road towing at freeway speeds for any decent mileage (50+), then you need to get your sh*t in order. Its not that big of deal to fix this stuff in your driveway or what ever but it's a huge PITA to burn up a wheel bearing in the middle of BFE and have to try to fix on the side of highway. You don't want to ever be that guy. bturner wrote up the definitive guide above...this is just your quick triage...

I'm dumb anal retentive about my trailer bearings / brakes / etc as I have been *that guy* broken on the side of the road. Never again. It's no fun and completely avoidable.....

[lfadam]

OK need some help. Tried to top up the grease on one of the bearings today and my zerk got stuck (again...this pump needs to go to the trash). In removing it, the zerk broke off out of the blue plastic housing (or it may have already been broken given my earlier picture of a bearing covered in grease...it is the same one).

1) What is this blue plastic housing called / where can I get a replacement?
2) What does replacing it entail? Do I have to remove the wheel? Or can I pry it out and pop a new one and top up with grease?

[bturner]

I don't know that you can buy the internal parts separately but here's a video of how they come apart.....

If you're missing parts or something got damaged they you're pretty much going to need to buy another set. The big thing is to get the right size which will entail using a set of calipers to measure the inside diameter of the of the hub or the outside diameter of the bearing buddy. The inside of the hub is probably more reliable as sometimes the case of the bearing buddy will get slightly out of round when you remove them.

As for removing a bearing buddy..... The bearing buddy is install with a pressed fit. As such you're going to have to use force to break it free of the hub. The way I do it is with a block of wood and a good sized hammer. You don't have to remove the wheel but it will make getting a good swing at the hub easier and you won't have to worry about a miss with the hammer or a glancing blow hitting your wheel. As such I would recommend the following.....

• Start by blocking the axle you're not working on to hold the trailer in place,
• Jack up the wheel just enough to get weight off it then break all the lugs loose.
• Jack up the wheel off the ground and remove the wheel/tire.
• Rest the block of wood on the top of the bearing buddy and strike the wood so that you're focusing on the end of the bearing buddy.
• Rotate the wheel 90 degrees and repeat. The idea is that you're going to walk the bearing buddy off the hub.

After a few goes you'll get the jest of what you're doing and how much force you'll need to get the bearing buddy to move. Back in the day when I was doing several trailers a year I could get these off in just a couple cycles. Putting one back on is simple as well. Get the bearing buddy squared up on the hub, place the block of wood on the BB end and give it a couple blows with the hammer until the BB is seated against the hub. Pump it up with grease until the center section rises and you're done. You'll want to check it after the first time out as the grease will settle but that's it.

Here's a great video on most of the above.....

[lfadam]

Thanks. Sounds like I need to go buy a caliper and bottle jack and see how this goes.

[lfadam]

Update: I tried jacking up the trailer with a 6 ton bottle jack and 3 2x6s and it still wasn't high enough. Trailer jack was over a foot off the ground which seems highly precarious but with the suspension I would have needed another foot to get the front right wheel off the ground (jacking from frame rail). Is this normal? or do most people use two jacks when jacking a trailer with boat on it?

Despite the jacking failure, I was able to get the bearing buddy off pretty easily with a hammer and beating block. Looks like it's the 2047 model, which nobody seems to have in stock. Hoping I can find one that can ship here before the weekend.

[bturner]

I realize you don't have a great working area and are doing what you can with what you have however other than using a bottle jack for emergency roadside repair I would highly recommend having a full sized floor jack (or the largest one you can make work for your situation) for working on the trailer with the boat on it. I would also recommend the use of jack stands for safety as hydraulic jacks can and do fail and sometimes quite abruptly. As far as suspension travel goes to lift the axle to get the tire/wheel off, a lot is going to depend on where you're lifting from. I use a floor jack under or near the spring perch. Once in contact with this point, which can easily be a 10", lifting the wheel is immediate as you're right at the axle/hub location.

Glad to hear you got the BB off. Scamazon is showing that BB available to ship and it would be at my house in Michigan tomorrow with Prime. Sounds like you're expanding your skill set and will have this behind you soon. Keep at it and good luck finishing this off.....

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B085N3G1LT...xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==

[lfadam]

Update: 2047 was the wrong size. It is the more common 1980. Was able to replace it pretty easily and topped up the grease on that wheel and one other.

Towed 110 miles each way over the Rockies with no issues. Hubs were barely warmer than ambient temp. Glad to have this done...will replace all of them in the off season.

Thanks for the help all!

[srock]

Update: I tried jacking up the trailer with a 6 ton bottle jack and 3 2x6s and it still wasn't high enough. Trailer jack was over a foot off the ground which seems highly precarious but with the suspension I would have needed another foot to get the front right wheel off the ground (jacking from frame rail). Is this normal? or do most people use two jacks when jacking a trailer with boat on it?

I have been here before. The bottle jack, usually from your truck, will not fit below the boat axle so you move to the frame and it is too short when fully extended. So now you are on the side of the road looking for something to wedge under the jack. For all those reading this post...check the jack you intend to use before you need it.

For a while, I carried a small scissors jack for the trailer but I found a small, compact, and reasonably priced floor jack that is a much better and safer solution.

[SilentSeven]

Towed 110 miles each way over the Rockies with no issues. Hubs were barely warmer than ambient temp. Glad to have this done...will replace all of them in the off season.

Want to nerd out and really cheat on hub temp monitoring? Get a cheap IR thermal gun to check temps. I have one next to my tire pressure gauge in the door pocket. Anytime I stop...just pop it out of the pocket and gun each hub for a quick check. Useful for all sorts car temp things really...

My hubs run typically run between 90 and 115 degrees....

[bturner]

First, glad to hear you made it over the hump on this. Bearings can be a real PITA and I personally don't know anyone that likes dealing with them.

Great 2 posts after yours as well. I keep telling myself I'm going to buy a temp gun (along with one of those bore scope cameras) but for whatever reason I never seem to pull the trigger. Might need to start a Christmas list early while I'm thinking of it. The second point about the jack is something I've had experience with as well. While it's rare that I get stuck on the side of the road, I do make it a habit to ensure I have the tools to change a tire whenever I swap out boats/trailers. A point to remember is that you have to calculate in the fact that the tire will be flat and any jack will need to be able to get under the axle while the tire is deflated and be able to lift the trailer when the spare inflated tire is going back on. If I were taking a long trip I'd be buying one of those small aluminum China Freight jacks. $100 well spent for a long trip or there's the steel one for $40 if you're on a budget.

https://www.harborfreight.com/automo...ump-64545.html

[Scooter G]

I threw a BFH in my tool box this week. Had a Buddy coming back from Tahoe this weekend and shredded a tire on his tandem. He had tools and a spare, but not a hammer big enough to deal with the mangled in all directions fender. He said he couldn't even get to the bolts to take the fender off, perfect storm, bust out another thousand.

[MN Ryan]

This thread was a good reminder/nudge for me to order my supplies. Unfortunately, we've only got a month left of boating here in MN.

Scooter G Yikes. I've always been terrified of a blowout. Time to throw a BFH in the Sequoia before the weekend!!!

[MN Ryan]

Hey Scooter G:

[Scooter G]

HaHa, I like it!! Man of your words

[bturner]

Thought I would thread jack one more time and close the loop on the Boatmate trailer rebuild and fix. Took us another 3 weeks but we finally got the rest of the bunks on the trailer, cut and painted the spacers that we've talked about installing and did a test load with the finished product. Yeah, I know the spacers are not what you would call sexy or impressive but they actually fixed the loading problem and for the first time since the BIL bought the boat in 2005 it loaded correctly (the bow didn't go under the bow roller) and actually centered by itself. All it took was a pair of 11/2" spacers under the front of the 2 front bunks. Now the boat loads as good as the trailer looks.