Trailer Bearings Overview: Lubrication and Maintenance

There are a variety of different types of bearings that are used on trailer axles. Some use the standard bearing that's been used for 60 some years and what a bearing does, it's gonna sit in the spindle in here and surround it with a series of rollers. And just as it goes down the road, it's gonna spin, they do require lubrication. Now the standard bearing, you would have to take the cap off, it would have a cover over this rather than what we see here. And you would have to take the nuts off of that, and the bearings out and knock them out to basically repack them. Now step up from that is what's called bearing buddy, and I've seen a lot of people that have gone to that step because it replaces the permanent cap, and it puts a grease sack on the outside here. Now this happens to be a different product, but the bearing buddy will only lubricate the front bearings, it will not get into the back set of bearings. A step up from that is what's called EZ Lube, and there are a couple different products out there EZ Lube, is Dexter, that happens to be Lippert components. And here is an example of the spindle that would be in here. And let me... Before we do this, let me take this off. So all you have to do with these and you can tell, on that cap here it will say EZ lube or bearing buddies in there. And you see we've got some grease that's already on that. So to show you what that looks like, this is the spindle that will literally be in there, and we see this in here. And when you put grease into this sack right here, it literally flows in through the spindle, and comes out this hole. Now EZ Lube has a couple different holes. So I would have a bearing right here and the outer bearing right here. And so with those bearings, that lube, that grease is gonna push back in here, and it will literally push the old contaminated grease out to the center. And I'll see the new red grease come out, and that re lubricates my bearings and cleans them up for me. Now you still need to once a year, check those bearings, you can't just keep lubing them without ever checking the bearings to make sure they're not scored, they're starting to get deteriorated. One of the things that most of the manufacturers recommend every 12 months, 12,000 miles to lubricate and inspect the bearings. Now this is a tool that I think is very important to have, it is an infrared thermometer. And what this does, is it just gives me... Put it in Fahrenheit, it gives me temperatures. So when I'm traveling down the road, and let's say it's 80 degrees outside, once a day the middle of the day, when the sun's up here, not on one side of the other, I hit this hub, and it tells me that it's right now it's 62.2 degrees. If I'm got an 80 degree day, it's not uncommon for that hub to be 100 degrees, maybe even 110 degrees, you'll start to kind of get a pattern of what is acceptable. But when I see it spike up into 130, 140, that's telling me that that bearing inside there is working too hard, it's getting dry, it's starting to get defective, and I need to take it out and either lubricate it or replace it. The other thing you can do while you're here is just get the brake drum and the tire. If the brake drum is really hot, then my brakes are probably set up a little too high, they're working too hard. If the tire gets hot, then I know that I probably lost a little bit of pressure but good product to have here. So find out what type of bearing system you have. Dexter is a company that carries a lot of different products, the EZ Lube. If you go to Dexter.com they have a maintenance schedule, and they'll show you a good diagram of how to troubleshoot those, but find out the bearings you have it will check them at least once a year and lubricate them and you should have less problems going down the road.