Changed my Drum brakes to Disc

Borris, I moniter all wheels and tires with IR thermometer including the RV and truck tires when towing. It takes no longer to walk around and hit the hubs with the thermometer every 2 hours, wheels/or discs, tires with the IR therometer than just to walk around. If you have a drum or disc dragging, it should be picked up. Same with inspection of tires and all running gear. One of the few times I violated this rule and went 4 hours, I ended up with a problem...

I can give you the "company line" from bearing buddy:
"BEARING BUDDY® VS. OIL BATH

Some trailer manufacturers are offering an oil bath system as an alternative to a standard bearing protector, such as Bearing Buddy®. They claim that since long haul trucks use this system it must be a superior system to a grease packed hub. What they fail to recognize is that America's highways are the perfect environment and application, as the constant miles and tire rotation keeps the bearings well lubricated. Boat trailers, however, operate in a completely different environment. The hubs on a trailer can heat up during long trips and when they are dipped into cool lake water, the sudden temperature change creates a vacuum inside the hub. This vacuum will draw any condensation, moisture, or impurities directly into the bearings, which can cause premature bearing failure.

Standard bearing protectors, such as Bearing Buddy®, make it easy to visually check the amount of grease inside grease packed hubs. The internal spring piston exerts about 3 p.s.i. against the grease to ensure that no water enters the hub when the hub is submerged during loading and unloading. When properly maintained, there are no voids inside the hub where condensation can form during wither storage.

By comparison, oil bath hubs should be checked after every loading/unloading cycle to make sure water has not penetrated and diluted the oil. Small leaks can cause the oil to escape and once this happens, bearing failure is quick and complete within a few miles. Most oil bath hubs are only half filled with oil and must be carefully inspected to maintain the proper level. Too much or too little oil could cause problems.

If a Bearing Buddy® is knocked off, it would still be possible to run for many miles without bearing failure. This would not be possible with an oil bath. Bearing failure would occur within a few miles.


The problem with moisture in both grease without pressure, and oil bath bearings has been reported in a number of the trailering forums. Again, i have no experience with the oil bath personally. But the hot cold cycles certainly will bring in water into bearings which do not have grease under pressure.
 
Thought I'd resurrect this thread as I'm probably going to add electric brakes to the front axle on my tandem axle ez-loader trailer. I've been very happy with the oil bath hubs. In the past, I've had problems with the bearing buddy style grease hubs pushing grease out the inner seal rendering the brake pads useless. Or with moisture getting inside the press on caps. The rear axle had the ez-loader brakes and oil bath hubs and worked great. When I converted to electric, I just added new Dexter electric brakes which matched up perfectly with the ez-loader hubs. To buy new brake drums from ez-loader with oil bath is ridiculously expensive. So I will just get dexter brake hubs that use grease. However I would like to use an oil bath system. Has anyone used the Kodiak prolube oil bath kit, or know of any other kits? Colby
 
We replaced the original Kodiak Brakes with new ones a couple of years ago. Just felt it was time for new brakes and brake lines. used the Kodiak Prolube oil bath again and have been very happy with it. One important tidbit. EZ Loader trailers of our vintage, 2006, have Kodiak brakes and Reliable brand spindles. The Reliable spindles are .02 smaller than the rear seals that come with the the Kodiak rotor/hub bearings 1.68" vs 1.70". I found this out after scratching my head over oil leaks. The fix is buying the right size seal.
 
Thanks for your comments on the oil bath. I have had no leaks either before switching the rear axle brakes over or after. I did go to my local seal and bearing dealer and found the right seal. Don't have the p/n here in front of me, but if anyone wants it, just let me know. My trailer is a 2007. I was also very happy that the dexter electric brake unit fit perfectly in the brake drum and hub that existed with the original surge hydraulic brake.
 
Maybe the oil bath had plastic see thru type caps that melted from the hub heating up. We have been using Kodiak brakes for five years in salt water launching mostly and they have been fine. Ours use 1990 Chevy Cavalier front brake pads. We have the Prolube type with grease fitting in the center at the end of the axle. That is covered with a tin type cup that you drive into the wheel hub with a block of wood like you would a Bearing Buddy. The center of the tin cup is open that gets fitted with rubber cover that allows you to remove it and check or add grease. When traveling I walk around the trailer at a rest stop and touch every hub with two fingers and lay my hand on the tires. If somethings running hot you will be the first to know. I see no reason to switch to oil bath type bearing lube system. This year I reused a grease cup after doing brakes. I checked the axle and tires after about an hour stopping for coffee and noticed one tin bearing cover with th rubber seal was missing in action. It was pretty cold out we were leaving for Florida in Febuary. I had traveled about an hour or so not knowing when or where the tin cover left the axle. I carry replacement tin cups and replaced it and reloaded with grease and don't reuse them anymore. If that had been oil bath I think the out come would have been worse
D.D.
 
Just to be clear, I've had no problems with the oil bath system. In fact, my hubs run very cool and I didn't notice any leaks in the system when I purchased my 2007 boat/trailer last year (I don't think the original owner pulled the trailer far though), nor after I changed the hydraulic brakes to electric. (And I've probably put several thousand miles on it now.) The problem is, Ez-loader only came with brakes on the rear axle, and I want to add them to the front axle now. The Ez-loader electric brake drum hubs (or hydraulic) with the oil bath cost $660. I can get a dexter set up for less than half that. But the Dexter hubs do not come with oil bath, so if I want oil bath I'll have to add an aftermarket kit. Kodiak makes such a kit for about $35. Looks like it just presses in to the hub end, then has it's own plastic cap and oil fill fitting. My concern is it might be easier to knock that press in kit off, than it is on Reliable's unit, which is screwed in to the end of their hubs. I may end up just sticking with grease. But I really like the oil bath system that came with the boat trailer. Easy to see the oils condition, runs much cooler than any grease system I've had in the past. And so far with my limited experience, no problems. I'm thinking I might epoxy the Kodiak after market kit into the hub tho, so it can't be knocked out. Colby
 
My experience with all air tight seals is that they are not air tight.....at least for very long......In general, I think the oil bath systems area a good idea. 90 weight oil seems like overkill to me as that is normally designated a hypoid gear oil, but many gear and bearings use it since it is sticky stuff.
 
I too have had no problems with the oil bath system and prefer it. We have towed long distances at highway speeds and when I check the hub temperatures with an IR thermometer they are about 95-105 degrees. The lubricant supplied with the prolube system is, according to Kodiak tech support, Amsoil synthetic dyed blue and about 60-70wt. They said one could use any 75-90 wt lube. Since their specific lube is a little hard to come by I used racing engine oil (60wt) in the one wheel I just changed out. By the way, Kodiak sells the polycarb screw on covers including O ring for next to nothing and I bought four just for peace of mind on long tows.
 
My IR temp gauge reads about the same thing on my hubs after running a while. When I had them apart last summer to change out the brakes, I refilled with Mobil 1 Synthetic Gear Oil 75W-90. So far it has worked well. I'm thinking after I put new brake drum hubs on the front axle, I may be able to use the original oil bath hubs as spares in an emergency. But I'll have to check once I get the brake backing plates on to make sure that would work. I had a new trailer under my old Searay that had torsion axles. I had a spare hub and axle with that. But I suppose with this trailer and axle, if I have a problem spinning a bearing, just putting an emergency spare hub on there probably isn't going to work... ;-( (Nice thing with tandem axle tho, you can always chain one up to limp in to a repair shop.)
 
Either system works well it they are maintained. For years a lot of military tracked vehicles ran oil bath lube systems. I liked them because i could walk the tank line and do a visual inspection to make sure they were lubricated. I have done this for thousands of axles. I could not do that with grease systems. With grease I had to be standing there to see it shot in and to see the pop off buttons show new grease.

In the packaging and paper industry we used oil bath systems for the worst conditions of high heat and steam. Bearings as big as a man under big loads and high rpms and in temps that burned off skin lasted for years. We also bought very expensive grease for high temp applications but when we wanted the best we used forced oil bath systems.

Good bearings with good seals with good grease will get the job done for boat trailer bearings. If I had oil bath bearings I would keep them. If you have grease systems and if your brakes get hot in your normal use, try and buy high temp grease.
 
Finally decided to go ahead and put electric brakes on the front axle of my boat's tandem axle trailer. (Originally, only the back axle had brakes.) FWIW, I went with Dexter, as I have a supplier near by and Dexter seems to be fairly easy to get and replace. I also decided to order the Kodiak XL Prolube kit. That's the aftermarket oil bath kit. I did not use the grease seals that came with the kit as they do not fit the 2007 EZ-Loader trailers. The proper seal is a TCM 168255TC. Everything went together fairly easy today. I'm pulling the boat 400 miles round trip this week, and will see how they work. But from what I've seen so far, I think they will work just as well as the Reliable oil bath system that EZ-loader uses. Colby
 
I broke a top leaf spring on the rear axle last weekend as I was towing out to the West side of the island for some fishing and consequently the rear axle dropped and bent while sticking out the back of the boat. a bit of a nightmare and a long saga. to long to go into but off loaded on to a loaner and away I went 6 hours later. Good fishing and a fun time so it was worth it. I have had a quote of 4 new springs. 1 new axle and a switch over to discs for around $ 2900. A new Road Runner trailer with drums for the 22 will set me back $ 3700 so that is the way I am leaning. Whats the thought on the advantages of discs over drums.
Thanks
Terry
 
My $1000 Kodiak disc brake system change out is now having problems. Pistons won't retract and I've already had to replace one set of disc brakes with there top of the line all stainless steel units that set me back $500 for just one axle. Their tech support wasn't surprised and said I did good to get two years on a set of their E-Coated brakes. He said once I dropped the big bucks on the SS brake set I should be good to go for quite a while.

A little disappointing.
 
We have the standard Kodiak disc brakes and have five years on the set up and the rotors are now ready to get changed. I wonder if your brake actuator is not letting the pressure off of the caliper pucks. Do you have a surge system or electric over hydraulic? I change the brake fluid every two years to keep things from getting gunked up. Something does not sound just right.
D.D.
 
Hi Will C,
My problem was 100% the piston not moving freely back into the caliper because of corrosion. This was also what Kodiak told me they weren't surprised about.

I was cleaning and regreasing my wheel bearings when I tried to back off my pistons and discovered the problem with a couple of them.
 
FWIW, I've never had sticky piston problems with my all electric brakes! :mrgreen: Already been there with my argument for going all electric, so won't bore you. :-) Regarding the oil bath hubs, I've had very good experience with those on this boat trailer as well. Both the originals from EZ-Loader, and the Kodiak Pro-lube after market. And very easy to see the oil condition through the plastic caps. Colby
 
Maybe I missed something but your first post was in December 2010 when you mentioned that you had switched to Disc brakes that spring. Not that it makes all that much difference to me but that seems like that's been more than two years. I sent email to Kodiak's tech department about your situation as most that have Kodiak brakes have fared a little better. Maybe they will respond. Maybe I'll switch to electric brakes as they have a proven record of no trouble for so long.
:idea
D.D.
 
Well, I suppose that we're giving testimonials now. Journry On's trailer came with Reliable hubs and, I believe, Kodiak calipers. That was in 2005. After a year or 2 I had to replace one caliper and I bought one of the Kodiak e-coated.

When I rebuilt the brakes last year, 2014, my how time flies, I originally wanted to replace the calipers but in looking at them I saw no reason to buy new ones. The originals, after 9 years and a bunch of salt water launchings worked well. I just cleaned them up and installed new ceramic pads. The e-coated one, after only 7 years still had some of the yellowish coating. So all I did was replace the hub seals, installed new sleeves and reground the discs. The latter was a point of discussion at the machine shop, but they did it. I'll get new ones in 9 years.

So basically, I'm one of the surprised ones in hearing that your calipers only lasted 2 years. The comment from Kodiak says more about their technical support than the calipers themselves. Unless they're now importing them from China. Then all bets are off.

I do hose down the brakes ASAP after each launch and have started to use Salt Away.

Electric brakes are fine for fresh water, since they use a electro-magnet in the brake drum. I've not heard of their use in salt water, but a gentleman from Wisconsin swears by them..

Boris
 
Boris I meant I was waiting to hear from Kodiak about my email asking them if they admit to these issues. Always good to here of every ones take on boats or trailers. I was just pulling Colby's chain about the electric brakes
D.D.
 
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