Today, we're going to take a quick look at Dexter's Trailer Hub and Drum Assembly, part number 8-201-5. This hub and drum is designed to be used on 5200 and 6000-pound axles. Keep in mind that the drum itself has a 2600-pound capacity so when you pair it up with another, you'll have 5200 pounds. This will be the limited weight that you can pull and use these brakes with. So even if you do fit it to a 6000-pound axle, remember your brake capacity will only be able to handle 5200. The hub does come with the bearings and they're already pressed into place inside the main bore.
You'll need a grease seal to go with it either 10-1 or 10-10 and you also need a grease cap either RG04-080 for standard axles or RG04-060 for easy lube axles. You also need the bearings and for the inner bearing, you'll need 25580 and the outer bearing will be LM67048. Now, we have a 6 on 5-1/2 bolt pattern. If we're able to accurately measure from the stud directly across to another stud, we'd get our 5-1/2 inches. We'll flip it over now and take a look inside the drum.
The drum measures 12 inches in diameter on the inside and it has a depth right at about 2-1/4 inches, which makes this drum to fit for 12 by 2-inch brake assemblies. And that's it for our quick look at Dexter's Trailer Hub and Drum Assembly, part number 8-201-5.
Cleaning and Replacing Hubs and Bearings
First off we will go ahead and take off the dust cap. In this case it is a bearing buddy. Next is taking out the locking pin, the cotter pin that goes through the center here. Once you have that lock washer off, just go ahead and take off the nut and pull your whole hub off. Now we are going to go ahead and inspect the hub and bearings here.
Remove and Reinstall a Trailer Hub Review
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. We will go ahead and clean this spindle off here, and then we will put our hub back on. 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 doesnt have to be much just a little bit, to kind of help the parts slide on a little bit more than they used to.
Trailer Hub Inspection Demonstration
We get many many questions on how to make sure trailer hubs and brakes are safe for travel. Here Joe addresses some of those questions demonstrating how to thoroughly inspect the hubs, breaks and bearings. I know many of us take the performance of these assemblies for granted but if you are planning a long trip or just make short trips around town you should be aware of their condition. I like to say it is time well spent when it avoids break downs on the side of the highway.
