Trailer Hub & Drum Assembly - 3,500 lbs. Axles - 5 on 4-1/2

Video Transcript for Repack Trailer Hub Bearings Demonstration

Removing the Trailer Hub: What we are going to do is take off this hub and repack the bearings in this axle. First off, we will take off the hub, then take off the nut on the inside, and we will pop the whole hub off and take it to the workbench and clean it up from there. You can see there is a lot of rust in there, there is a lot of condensation. Basically water got in there through either condensation or a seal leak. We definitely need to take it apart and clean it up. This has whats called a tang washer. Instead of a regular cotter pin that goes up and down, it has a little piece of metal that goes between the notches here and you have to push this back, flat, so you can take off the nut. And the whole thing just slides off. Sometimes if it gets caught on the hub here you can beat it to get it to come loose. You can see where you got a little bit of rust and possibly two different types of grease in there. The two greases do not mix, so it does not work as good, you get condensation and rust starting on the outside here. Also of note this is what is called an EZ lube spindle, there is a little zerk fitting here. You take the grease gun and squirt it in here and it comes out the back, in this groove right here actually, so in between packings, you can grease it, and the grease actually goes through this bearing here, through here, and out this bearing here. So theoretically, you can repack your bearings by just squeezing it in here. But since it is rusted out you have to do it the hard way.

Disassemble and Clean the Hub, Seals, Race, and Bearings: Now we got our hub here, we have to take it apart. What we will do is take it apart and basically just clean out the bearings and get rid of the rust and stuff and do an inspection. This one, since it came off easy, all you have to do is clean it up, just spray it down and clean it up. You do not have to worry about that, the spindle is in good shape. This is the tang washer I was talking about, this actually sits on top of this washer, the d-ring washer here, and this is the tab I was talking about, you have to push back up, so it fits in one of these notches here. Get a towel and take a quick look at the bearings here, wipe them down. I am wiping them down real fast and you can see what they actually look like once you get all the junk off. Basically you just take a quick look and see if there are any notches or nicks or if they look like they are burnt or toast, basically browned from overheating. This looks like it is in pretty decent shape. Just needs new grease and a good cleaning. You can use brake clean to help kind of break it down a little bit. Once you clean it out really good, it should be able to spin quite freely. After you clean it up a little bit it should spin like that. This cage around it should not have any dents or anything like that. It should not be punched in or anything like that. So this just needs a good cleaning and then be put back in and regreased. Then we can flip this over and this seal has to come out. Every time you pack the bearings you have to destroy a seal and put a new one in, its just the way works. There are actually two different ways of doing it, I know that there is a special tool for it, I dont have it, most people dont. What I like to do is take a punch and push this in a little bit, or actually make a hole in it, so it pulls the seal away from the edge where you can stick a screwdriver in there, tap it in a few times and pop it out. It is a little bit less stressful on the bearing. The other way of doing it, if you do not have that, is to take a wooden stake or something like the handle of this and go in though there and beat it out that way. (Do not really us the handle of a hammer, it was the only example of wood that I had handy.) It puts a lot of wear and tear on the bearing, but its another way of doing it. (Consider this the last option due to potential damage to the bearing. Unless you know you are going to replace the bearings anyway.) I do not know if you can see there or not how I punched it in and it brought the seal away from the edge. And that is where we will try to work in our screwdriver. There we go. We will go ahead and get the bearing out and wipe it down real fast. Makes it a little bit easier to see, rotate the bearing cage, look for anything that bounces up and down too much. This is almost a continuous line so I think the cage is pretty good on this one. So we will just keep cleaning it up until it spins freely. I am looking for little nicks or stuff like that. Sometimes you can see a little bit of wear, it is like a dark band here, light band here, dark band here. For the most part that is kind of acceptable, it is not perfect, but in this case I think it will be fine. If its really dark you definitely want to change it out because that part of the bearing, this actual roller got overheated, but this one looks pretty darn good. Then you have to clean out this hub here. Here is something you might want to take a look at. See these marks on the race. Usually you see that when there is too much weigh that has been sitting on the bearings, and it sat there for a while. So it made an imprint and you get these dark bands in there. With something like that, you probably want to go ahead and replace the race at this point, and since you replace the race you usually get new bearings with it. So we will go ahead and take out the races here, and just rebuild the hub at this point. We have got to take out the races. So what we have got to do is catch the back edge of this and force it out. Couple of different ways of doing it, most people just use a nice wide screwdriver and catch the edge of it and wail away. You go alternating sides, just work it out both sides. Another way of doing it is if you have got a piece of pipe like this, where it catches most of, or bigger chunk of the circle and then we have more force going down on it to push down on one side or the other. I like to start it off with a screwdriver and then finish up with that. Couple more times. And there is the old race. Do not throw this away because well need this to push the new one back in. We will set that to the side and we will drive the inner race out through the back side.

Assemble and Regrease the Hub, Race, and Bearings: Grab our new race and one end is wider than the other. Put the narrow end, or I guess the cone facing out that way, coned in this way. Go ahead and just lay it on there and tap in a circle. You can hear it change the tone and that means it bottomed out. Take your other race, your old one, put it on top and drive it down just a little bit more with that. Do not go too far because, you might get this one stuck in there too. Find the biggest socket you have so you can put it up against the edge, where you can grab most of this edge right here with the socket and just go back and forth and work it. Kind of maybe go in a circle and work your way down. You know when you hit bottom when the strikes make a different tone, and do the same thing for the backside. We will pack this side and then flip it over and then pack the other side. Get a good gob, and put a light coating on the race itself. Actually, it does not take much, you do not have to pack it full. Because a lot of it does not get really used. In a marine application like this, you want to go ahead and get the grease gun out and use it since we have the special spindles. Go ahead and fill the cavity that way, but for most land trailers this is pretty much enough as it is. Grab your new bearing here, and all you have to do is work it inside of here a little bit at a time. Keep going around, flip it over and we want to get inside it here. Just get inside, so when the bearing starts spinning, it gets all worked up in there. Give it a couple of spins maybe before you pop it in there. We will pop in a new seal. It just goes in rubber side facing up, and you will notice that this is a double lip seal, which is really good for marine applications. You can tell it is a double lip seal because it has a spring in there. There is one lip here, and there is one on the outside. It is a lot more durable seal. Pop that on like so, and go in our circle again. There we go. Do not get crazy, it just has to be flush right here. Do not bang it down in there or anything like that, flip it and do it again. After further inspection and cleaning it up, we found some flat spots where it looks like when the hub was replaced before the bearing failed basically, and this part was dragging on the inside of here, on the first hub, not this one. So since this has been damaged we will go ahead and put a new one on there. So well go ahead and do that and just be done with it.

Install the Trailer Hub: We will go ahead and clean this spindle off here, and then we will put our hub back on. Since we have the brake clean out, we will go ahead and clean up the pads a little bit here. If there is any oil or something like that on there we will go ahead and be able to dissipate it and wipe it down. Give it a test fit first to make sure it all slides on pretty good and then go ahead and take it back off. What is good is to take a thin layer, it does not have to be much just a little bit, to kind of help the parts slide on a little bit more than they used to. Slide that on there and give it a simple little spin. Sometimes if you push it in and spin it helps go on a little bit further. Slide the tang washer on and the castle nut. Go ahead and torque that down and just go till it stops. Do it a few times until you get a good feel where it stops at, you do not want to torque it down too tight, because that makes the bearings to tight this way and then that generates heat and your bearings come apart, and you are here again. So go ahead and just back off a few times. Just where it stops and note which notch this tang is on. So basically I like to go one and then back it off, where it stops and then back off one. Tighten it down and then back it off, one notch until one of these tangs lines up, and basically just push it down into that groove right here. Give it a test spin. You should hear the brake linings drag a little bit. It should spin pretty decent like that. Also, you can check it by squeezing alternately this way, and this way to see if you have any extra play. There is some play, but it is better to be on the loose side than being super tight. That is pretty good.

Install the Dust Cap:And then the next thing is to put your dust cap back on. Which there are a variety of different ways of doing it. Basically put it on here, take the side of a hammer and then use a block of wood and drive it home that way. However if you make a trip to the hardware store, you can get yourself a metal conduit union and split it apart, and these threads are just the right size for this. Slide it over, and that is it. And then one last thing you want to do. Air gets trapped in there and sometimes its under pressure. So you might want to go ahead and pop that open and let the air equalize a little bit. Since we have got it apart and since this is a marine application, what you want to do is come in next with your grease gun and then go ahead and pump this full and fill the cavity full now. And then you have all your grease inside of here. Again, that is for a marine application, so when you dunk it in water the grease repels the water that may seep in and actually keeps out the condensation from happening. Which is what happened to this one. Pretty much that is it, but for land trailer use, that is enough grease, maybe give it a few squirts just to make yourself feel better, and for good measure. Pop your seal on, put your wheel on, and you are good to go.