Greasing wheel bearings.....

[DaveL]

When I recently bought the trailer I was informed by the previous owner that he had done most maintenance, but the wheel bearing maintenance was overdue.  Trying to get ready for repacking wheel bearings (not my favorite activity), I was researching the Dexter Axels to go ahead and line up the grease seals and bearings to have spares when I start the disassembly.  Copying down some of the casting marks on the drums indicates it has the EZ Lube systems.  What a pleasant surprise.... just hook up a grease gun and go.  The only downside is that it seems to use a lot of grease for the change out.  Since repacking "normal" bearings seems to always end up with me with a thin coating of grease as well.......... this seems like a more than fair trade.

I don't know if all Camplites come with the EZ Lube axles but I am impressed with this trailer.

Dave

[Scout]

The ez lube hubs are great. I have them on my 13RDB . I think most of them (if not all) with the dexter torflex have the ez lubes. Each spring I run through both the campsite and boat trailer. 30 mins and I'm done. I've just noticed today i need a new rubber cap, so will be on the hunt this week to replace. I found this video on you tube for the ez lube bearing maintenance routine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnH-h3W9XvI

KC

[Pinstriper]

The risk you run with ez-lubes is you aren't getting good inspection of the bearings or axle.

When you pull the bearings, clean and re-pack, you get to feel the axle for any scoring. You get to inspect the parts for discoloration that would indicate an overheating condition. And of course since you've pulled them you may as well replace with new parts and avoid any question of whether they are heat damaged.

With an ez-lube none of that happens. So you could just be pushing grease into a damaged set of bearings and never know it until it outright fails.

That said, it is way more convenient, so you can push the grease in on an accelerated schedule.

[DaveL]

I saw a Youtube video of a guy troubleshooting trailer brakes.  It was advertised as a "normal" hub with bearing removal and repack along with it.  You could clearly see that it was an EZ-lube hub.  He basically did as you suggested.... removed the grease seal, cleaned both bearings, repacked them like a normal repack (along with a complete replacement of the brake assembly). Didn't appear to replace the bearing races.  THEN he put it all back together and pumped grease into the EZ Lube until grease came out.  None of the benefits of the EZ lube axle.

Not sure about this as I thought that the EZ Lube hubs might have a different procedure for bearing adjustment but will have to check.  He adjusted it normally... cinched down on the bearing and then backed off the main nut a quarter of a turn.  ..... in the video he was recommending complete disassembly for brake inspection once per year..... which seems like overkill to me.

For travel trailers is it considered a good practice to replace the races along with the bearings?  In autos they are normally sold as a matched set but for TT seems to be sold separately implying that it is not necessary....