greasing a new trailer axle?

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I read an article made by dexter axle that says you should grease a new axle after 50 miles then like every 12,000 after that. It didn't really mention many details, but it was from 2002 I think. Should the axle be greased after a short period like it says?
 
I did mine that day i got it home in 2004.

ALL 8 bearings were WOEFULLY "dry" - like 3 drops of grease each.

Originally Posted By: motor_oil_madman
12,000 miles seems kind of long doesn't it?


I do mine every 2 years, which is about 10,000 miles of use.
 
I've heard on these ez lube axles they just put grease on both the inner and outer bearings and in order to use the ez lube feature you have to pump grease in until it fills the entire hub. I know on my old trailer it took an entire tube to get it where the grease started coming out like they demonstrate. The problem with that is it kind of oozes past that rubber cap and gets on the rim.
 
Originally Posted By: Linctex

I did mine that day i got it home in 2004.

ALL 8 bearings were WOEFULLY "dry" - like 3 drops of grease each.

Originally Posted By: motor_oil_madman
12,000 miles seems kind of long doesn't it?


I do mine every 2 years, which is about 10,000 miles of use.


How many pumps did you put in per side? I was just going to put in like 5 or 6 pumps per side and call it good, I think greasing it until it comes out causes too many problems.
 
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At work we put in 2 or 3 pumps a year. Were having problems with grease getting pushed into the brake drum and glazing the shoes. Don't know if your particular axle has brakes, but thats an issue we had.
 
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Originally Posted By: motor_oil_madman
How many pumps did you put in per side? I was just going to put in like 5 or 6 pumps per side and call it good, I think greasing it until it comes out causes too many problems.

No,man. You can't blindly just pump grease into the hub. You will blow the rear seal. Look online for the proper way to grease your bearings. Test after each trip by grabbing each hub. A hub that is hotter than the roadway has a problem. Always check the inside of the wheel for grease that has spidered onto the hub....this means you have blown the rear seal. Hope this helps.
 
Originally Posted By: FZ1


No,man. You can't blindly just pump grease into the hub. You will blow the rear seal. Look online for the proper way to grease your bearings. Test after each trip by grabbing each hub. A hub that is hotter than the roadway has a problem. Always check the inside of the wheel for grease that has spidered onto the hub....this means you have blown the rear seal. Hope this helps.


He was talking for the Dexter EZ-Lube axles. Those are designed to be greased until the grease comes out the front. The catch is you have to make sure to spin the wheel while greasing to ensure that the rear seal doesn't blow. For that design if you only put in a set amount of pumps you will not be greasing the outer bearing at all.
 
I have the EZ lube on my trailer and never use them. Some fool at the trailer plant or dealer power gun greased my trailer before we got it and blew the seals out in it, took me a long time and a lot of work to clean the mess up.
Dexter says to repack the bearings yearly but I think that's more for a CYA since the brakes are inspected at the same time the bearings are serviced. I do mine every couple of years. These are the same bearings that were used on cars for years, nobody repacked their front wheel bearings every year, most manuals said to do it when changing brake pads which was often 50k miles and many years.
The biggest thing that I have found over the years is checking the bearing preload after the first 100 miles or so. I have found a couple that needed to be snugged up a little after break in, that also gave me a chance to make sure the bearings were packed with enough grease.
 
Yes most new trailers need some grease. When using lever type gun one should be able to feel when the hub gets full with a change of resistance. Maybe its a trained feeling having grown up on the farm with everything needing grease. Still have 9 trailers. Got to get rid of some:(. I usually jack the axle up and rock the wheel to check for play and spin the wheel and start to give the hub a few pumps till I feel some resistance. Pretty much at least annually before making a longer haul. Never had on the road failure in 40 years. About the closest failure was after a 2k mile trip with 500 in cold rain got home and the next day was moving the trailer to unload I heard a squeak and the hub had sucked up some water and probably would not have made it more than a couple miles. Trailer was 10 years old at the time and the inner seal was bad. New seal and bearing set $14 and did the other side as well. Its going to TX this fall with my folks pulling it, 1600 miles one way.
Very important IMO to check the play after install of new bearings as they may not have been seated all the way. I like bearing buddy grease system
 
I can't understand why they specify greasing after 50 miles. There should be no break-in debris as found with differentials, transfer cases, etc. Bearings shipped by the manufacturer are clean.

Are you sure it isn't just to check for axial play?
 
Originally Posted By: Kestas
I can't understand why they specify greasing after 50 miles. There should be no break-in debris as found with differentials, transfer cases, etc. Bearings shipped by the manufacturer are clean.

Are you sure it isn't just to check for axial play?

I have found that most trailers are shipped with the bearings packed(usually poorly) but not the hub being filled.

I also found that sometimes the bearings were not properly seated and way to much play after a short distance
 
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Originally Posted By: 09_GXP
For that design if you only put in a set amount of pumps you will not be greasing the outer bearing at all.


I don't use ANY kind of "bearing buddies" or anything with a grease zerk,

I always pack my wheel bearings by hand.

It's the only way I can GUARANTEE no failures.
 
My 2001 Trailswest 5 horse gets 3-4 pumps of grease per year. I would wipe up the excess that works its way out. When I recently redid the backing plates (Dexter 7k pound, 12x2") I cleaned out all the old grease, repacked the bearings and then pumped in a pile of grease in. There is a large void I found between the bearings that would require a lot of grease to fill. Before the next big trip I will throw in a pile more grease as I rotate the wheel.

Other than a bit of grease that weeped past the seal over the years, they have never blown out.
 
Originally Posted By: Linctex
I don't use ANY kind of "bearing buddies" or anything with a grease zerk,

I always pack my wheel bearings by hand.

It's the only way I can GUARANTEE no failures.

I have seen smaller trailers with zerk fittings and it seems that they only manage to get ONE bearing. Only way to be sure that both are getting grease is to take apart and repack by hand.
 
So with the ez lube axles, should I just go ahead and pump grease in until it's full and comes out the weep hole?
 
Originally Posted By: Linctex
I don't use ANY kind of "bearing buddies" or anything with a grease zerk,

I always pack my wheel bearings by hand.

It's the only way I can GUARANTEE no failures.

This^^^^^
 
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