Re: Bearing Buddies or Baddies?

From: jckniese@francomm.com
Date: Tue Feb 15 2000 - 02:30:18 PST


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        West Wight Potter Mailing List maintainer
                dfarrell@ridgecrest.ca.us
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Dave & Francesca Kautz wrote:
>
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> West Wight Potter Mailing List maintainer
> dfarrell@ridgecrest.ca.us
> List hosted by www.tscnet.com
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> It was a rainy weekend and, feeling restless, I decided to undertake the
> dreaded trailer wheel bearing maintenance. This involved running out to
> the driveway in between showers, pulling off the wheels and hubs and
> scurrying back into the relative warmth of the garage.
>
> What a messy job. It was clear almost immediately that water had gotten
> into the hubs from the milky color of the grease (kind of a dark green
> when it's clean). Now, keep in mind as this tale unwinds that I did this
> job just less than two years ago and replaced all the bearings and seals
> with new parts at that time.
>
> Here's what I found. Both seals were trashed, both in the same way. On
> each one a long section of the rubber "lip" had torn free of the seal
> and was hanging like a piece of string. I suppose I should have
> anticipated this since every time I added grease to the bearing buddies
> I ended up with grease speckles all over the bottom of the boat, the
> wheels, the fenders and the trailer. The races of the inner bearings
> (the ones next to the seals) showed obvious signs of corrosion and
> didn't turn smoothly when rotated by hand - and these are not ancient
> parts, as I mentioned before they are less than two years old. The outer
> bearings looked and felt fine. A good thing too, since I only had two
> spare bearings.
>
> I cleaned all the parts to be re-used, packed the bearings and
> reassembled the hubs following the directions in the Champion Trailers
> catalog. The new seals were of a slightly different design, having two
> lips on each seal instead of one (like the parts I removed). I put on
> standard dustcaps instead of the bearing buddies - I'm going to try it
> that way for the next season and see if the seals hold up better.
>
> I'm a little suspicious that the internal pressure generated by the
> bearing buddies may have contributed to the early failure of those
> seals. My trailer has the little 8 inch wheels, so even at 60 mph those
> hubs are really spinning. Perhaps the extra pressure and the high speed
> cause too much friction and heat at the seal lip? I guess we can't
> expect otherwise, that after the integrity of the seal is gone the rest
> goes to he*l quickly.
>
> So what's the real scoop on Bearing Buddies? The little spiel printed on
> the package makes sense, but on a replacement hub kit at West Marine it
> said quite clearly not to use them, voids the warranty, etc., etc..
>
> As I mentioned above, I'm going to try a season without the buddies and
> compare but does anyone have a "been there, done that" story to relate?
>
> Dave Kautz
> P-15 #1632, Tilly Lucy
> Palo Alto, CA
Hi Dave,
I would think your problem is with the seals not the bearing buddies.
Try to find some seals that have small springs on the inside to maintain
pressure against the wheel. Also I would up grade those 8" wheels to
12".
Bob
P19#1148 Dovie
Duanesburg,NY



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