Wheel Bearing question

I was reading watisituya’s post on repacking wheel bearings last month, my trailer is 10 years old and all I Do is put grease in. Took a trip up north this weekend, stoped in Elk River to get food at Cub. I touched the boat hubs to check for hot hubs, nope cool to the touch. Driving in Zimmerman a guy pulls up to me at the light and says my tire is smoking, looked sure anough. Pulled into the SA, the tire was wobbly and smoking hot. Short story, the bearings were gone. WTF if it was not for this nice guy Kevin who has a shop in town, my trip would have been cut short with a $350 flat bed ride home. Only thing I can think of was lack of grease? Now I need a new hub and axel because it was metal on metal and some scoring happened.

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Water gets in. Bearings rust/corrode. Eventually no matter how much grease is in there they give out. Consider yourself lucky the wheel stayed on and didn’t trash the entire axle. (Been there.) Now just go replace the entire hub on both sides and call it good!

-J.

New grease doesn’t equate new bearings.

Jon Jordan wrote:

Consider yourself lucky the wheel stayed on and didn’t trash the entire axle. (Been there.) Now just go replace the entire hub on both sides and call it good!

Yyyyyyup.

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Where’s the cap? Did you remove it or was it missing?

Cap fell off somewhere on 169, I did clean a little bit of old grease off the wheel last time I used the boat. Maybe that was a sign I missed.

bigcrappie wrote:

Cap fell off somewhere on 169, I did clean a little bit of old grease off the wheel last time I used the boat. Maybe that was a sign I missed.

Inside our outside of the wheel? May have lost the rear seal, water got in and corroded the bearings. Lost a rear seal two falls ago, I know it happened on the trip back, no way I would have missed the grease all over the inside of the fender in my pre trip inspection. Fortunately it didn’t go one me but I replaced the bearings/races anyway even though they looked fine.

All these horror stories make me feel less paranoid about how much I watch/inspect my bearings.

gixxer01 wrote:

Where’s the cap? Did you remove it or was it missing?

The cap will fall of when the rollers fall out of the bearing. That includes bearing buddies too.