Remove and Reinstall a Trailer Hub Review
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Review on Removing and Reinstalling a Trailer Hub
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.
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 dont 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 youre 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. Thats pretty good.
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 thats 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 weve 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 youre good to go.
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