Bearing Buddies and related items (Long - get a cup of coffee)

From: Dennis W. Farrell (dfarrell@ridgecrest.ca.us)
Date: Tue Feb 15 2000 - 17:24:36 PST


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        West Wight Potter Mailing List maintainer
                dfarrell@ridgecrest.ca.us
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FWIW, here's a site for a small trailer FAQ which may be of interest to this
group ( http://kendaco.telebyte.com/rlindber/rv/pop-up1.html ). Look at
axles, lug nuts, Bearing Buddies,towing, etc. Note that it isn't fully
clear whether their objections to Bearing Buddies are primarily applicable
to trailers with brakes, or are more generally applicable.

CHAMPION TRAILER PARTS SUPPLY at http://championtrailers.com/ has several
good articles on bearing packing, bearing installation, and trailer tires.
They have a different approach to lubing wheel bearing through use of a
special spindle. Harry Gordon bought one of these. I hope he'll report to
the group when he has had enough experience with it to draw some
conclusions. Champion is generally a good site for trailer information and
equipment.

"Trailer Without Tears"
( http://www.boatsafe.com/nauticalknowhow/trailer.htm )
has a brief bit on Bearing Buddies, plus a comment on leaving the motor
mounted while doing the "55 mph dead to win'ard" part of your sailing trip.

The Bearing Buddys manufacturer's homepage is at http://www.ufpnet.com/
They used to have maintenance information there, but I can't find it.

There have been comments by people in this group and others about having
*lost* Bearing Buddys while driving down the road. Yep - they apparently
came right off and fell by the wayside.

Now - my experience. This is a sample of ONE, and should be extrapolated
only at your own risk. YMMV - and probably will. I've used Bearing Buddies
for over 20 years. Never had one come off. Never had a bearing failure.
Towed home (over 100 miles in one case) some Godawful used trailers where I
had to knock the old grease off the zerk fitting with a stick - but I
refilled them and got the trailer home to where I could work on it. For
several reasons I almost always submerge my trailer bearing in salt water.

How do I use them? When rebuilding a hub I always install SpindoSeals on
the axle if they're available. I never (weelll hardly ever)over fill them.
When I get to the launch ramp they have an opportunity to cool while I rig
the boat. I always (welll almost always) check them and fill them before
launching. When rebuilding a hub I disassemble and carefully clean the
Bearing Buddys and usually replace the internal O-ring seal - a hardware
store item. I use Bearing Buddy Bras to contain anything that slips past
the O-ring. I always stop at about 10 miles, 50 miles, and occasionally
thereafter to feel my trailer hubs to make sure the hub isn't much hotter
than the tires - and I've never found a problem there. I do tow in desert
temperatures - 115 degrees in the shade and little shade to be found.

One word of trailering caution I've never seen anywhere else. If you've
never done it, go out and grab your lug wrench and see if you can physically
loosen your trailer lug nuts. They may be rusted, they may have been
overtorqued by the tire shop gorilla. A brand new spare tire and wheel is
of little use if you can't get the old one off<G>

  -- dwf



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