So almost 1 year to the day I had a catastrophic failure of my timkin bearings. I am now pretty much convinced I got a set bad from the factory as the the left side lasted 3 months and the right side lasted 15 months (around 1K miles).
I got looking around and found these Vortex hubs. Claim they are good for 6 years or 100K miles. Anybody used them or heard anything about them?
https://trailerparts.com/tie-down-5-bolt-on-4-1-2-vortex-hub-with-1-1-16-x-1-3-8-bearings.html
So almost 1 year to the day I had a catastrophic failure of my timkin bearings. I am now pretty much convinced I got a set bad from the factory as the the left side lasted 3 months and the right side lasted 15 months (around 1K miles).
It could be the axle. My trailer for my last boat blew 3 bearing on the left side and never one on on the right side. Sometimes lasted as little as 1 trip to the rainy river. Put bearing buddies on and got more miles out of it for a while before it blew again.
I sold the boat before I could ever find the problem. However, I suspect the bearing were at their maximum load capacity. They were 1250# bearings on a Crestliner Fish Hawk 1750. They were an oddball hub too. Had two different size bearings in the hub.
Are you having issues on both sides or just one?
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Jonesy wrote:</div>
So almost 1 year to the day I had a catastrophic failure of my timkin bearings. I am now pretty much convinced I got a set bad from the factory as the the left side lasted 3 months and the right side lasted 15 months (around 1K miles).It could be the axle. My trailer for my last boat blew 3 bearing on the left side and never one on on the right side. Sometimes lasted as little as 1 trip to the rainy river. Put bearing buddies on and got more miles out of it for a while before it blew again.
I sold the boat before I could ever find the problem. However, I suspect the bearing were at their maximum load capacity. They were 1250# bearings on a Crestliner Fish Hawk 1750. They were an oddball hub too. Had two different size bearings in the hub.
Are you having issues on both sides or just one?
Blew the left side last year they were 3 months old. Blew the right side today they are 15 months old. Could be the axle I guess. Had a shop check the axle last year and they said they were good to go. Both sides had bearing buddies. I would check for slop in the tires every few months.
So you didn’t have any major blow outs on the road? That’s a good thing.
We’re they clearly worn when you replaced them?
I’m not gonna pretend to know a lot about wheel bearings but I see a lot of products at work come back for maintenance that have various types of bearings. The most common failure is overloading the bearing. And normally it’s from loading the bearing off it’s intended axis.
So either
A – you have an installation problem
B – some kind of axle alignment problem
C – could be a overloading problem
I highly doubt it’s a lubrication problem.
Do you know how much your boat, motor and trailer weighs? According to the hubs you had selected your max is 3500#. Doesn’t take much to get to 3500#.
According to alumacraft my boat is 962 pounds before you add the motor or anything else.
I don’t think it’s a lubricant problem based on how much grease was present. In both cases it was the inner bearing that went bad.
I should hear back today what the shop thinks. I’m thinking I may just get a new axle and go with these vortex hubs
I had to replace the axle on my trailer in 2015. Went with the Vortex hubs. I have had no issues at all. Re-greasing the bearings is a breeze.
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