Now on the Oil Bath Bandwagon

D

Dora~Jean

Active member
After nearly 20 years experiencing the joys (not) of Buddy Bearings and grease I finally bit the bullet and converted to the oil bath system. Seems like the gods have been against me on the old grease system, there are very few others I've talked to that have had the extent of problems that I have had. 2 years ago I converted to Electric over Hydraulic and replaced all of the rotors and calipers (SS) to Kodiak. New bearings and replacement Buddy Bearings for grease. Used the best, 100% waterproof marine grease I could find, followed every recommendation I could find, including topping off the Buddy Bearings only when hot, then cooling the hubs down before dunking in the water. Still blew 2 inner seals after 2 years of very light use, disc brakes useless on those wheels. Pulling a 25 in freeway traffic on only 2 working discs is seriously risky.

I have a Pacific trailer and have learned way more than I wanted to learn about seals. First off, it evidently has non-standard seal surface diameters. They are 2 1/8" dia rather than 2 1/4" dia for axles with this load rating. They are Dexter axles, well-respected as an axle goes. That became my biggest hurdle to buying the right seals which had to be researched and bought separately from the Kodiak Oil Bath kit.

Now with approximately 100 road miles on the new system in 100F+ weather, I'm gaining confidence. The next milestone will be the 2-year mark. If everything is still OK, I will be sold on this system and elated I did the switch.

Special thanks to Jim Gibson and Colby for your valuable information while I was head-scratching what to do next.
 
Steve, I ran the grease through bearings on a single axle trailer for the first 8 years we had the CD22. They were the type you greased through the outer hub & pumped until grade came out the inner seal. I would grease every couple hundred miles on long trips & then let them cool & grease again before launching, then grease again before retrieving. In 40,000 miles & 3 long Alaska trips, I had zero problems, but they were a pain to keep from trouble. After the 8 years, I switched to a double axle trailer with electric over hydraulic & oil bath hubs. I have now towed this trailer for 12 years & over 50,000 miles with again being trouble free & the only maintenance in these years being a single change of the hub bath oil & also one replacement of the Kodak brake pads. As said, I haven’t had problems with either system, but a huge difference in ease of preventative maintenance. The weak link in the oil bath system is the plastic clear oil level view port on the outside hubs. Rock or other debris can hit & break this cover causing oil loss. On our long road trips to Alaska, I tape over these, & also carry a spare complete bearing & hub assembly.

Most trailer bearing & tire problems originate from over heating, which can can be created by a multitude of different factors, so the earlier one knows this is occurring the less the damage will be. A good tire monitoring system that registers heat & pressure on a viewing screen with also alarm settings can catch a problem before extensive damage occurs.

Jay
 
I don't know. My trailer has the bearings that came with it from the PO and the same grease. When I first got the boat I checked that there was sufficient grease in the bearings and haven't touched them since (10 years ago). Tow the boat up to 650 miles a day and the hubs don't get any warmer than I expect. Every ~200 miles I stop for gas and can put my hand on any hub and can leave it there as long as I want.

Not sure I want to mess with the bearings and stuff. Maybe I'm on borrowed time, but there's still "If it ain't broke don't fix it."
 
ssobol":103yipc1 said:
I don't know. My trailer has the bearings that came with it from the PO and the same grease. When I first got the boat I checked that there was sufficient grease in the bearings and haven't touched them since (10 years ago). Tow the boat up to 650 miles a day and the hubs don't get any warmer than I expect. Every ~200 miles I stop for gas and can put my hand on any hub and can leave it there as long as I want.

Not sure I want to mess with the bearings and stuff. Maybe I'm on borrowed time, but there's still "If it ain't broke don't fix it."
Click to expand...

Same.

I just towed our 22' to the St Lawrence River and back from SE PA (about 410 miles each way) up and down route 81 (endless up and down across the successive ridges of PA). I checked every hub at each stop -- ambient temperature every time.

I have a King Dual axle trailer with electric brakes and bearing buddies and new tires.
 
Nice to see you're still traveling Dora-Jean. I'm not.

Not going to get into the debate of oil vs grease. But here is my experience.

Single axle trailer with a sailboat on it. Grease in bearings. No brakes. No trouble. Several trips to Mexico. 10 years use.

Dual axle trailer with 25' sailboat. Grease in bearings. Disc brakes, changed to drum due to lack of parts. No trouble. Trips to Sacramento, San Diego. 4 years use.

C-Dory 25, ez Loader trailer with oil hubs. Disk brakes. No trouble with bearings. Seals wore out the spindles, plastic hub covers broke, replaced disks. Trips all over the West: San Juans, Lake Superior, Mississippi River, Lake Powell, Sacramento. 17 years use.

It's been all salt water launches (except 4).

Boris
 
Some additional information. I'm not sure if the load on the bearings is a factor in potential problems, i.e., a CD22 (~5,000 lbs) vs a CD25 (~8,000 lbs). I do have an excellent TPMS unit (Hawkshead from Canada) and I monitor pressures and temperatures religiously; it has saved my bacon a couple of times already (1 a blowout - which is not detectable towing a 25 until you see smoke coming out the rear of your trailer, and the other a slow leak from a screw I picked up).

For sure, hub temperature is the main factor causing grease expansion and seal blowout. My previous disc rotors were Stainless Steel, 1/4" junk from Tie Down Engineering (now a defunct company). These non-vented rotors along with my surge brakes were the cause of numerous, and I mean numerous, hub overheats that caused seal failures. Switching to EOH (Electric Over Hydraulic) along with robust vented rotors solved that problem and my hubs run cooler - just warm not hot. So I thought my seal problems were behind me. I did notice, however, before mounting the new oil bath seals/hubs that I had some minor scoring (ridges) on the spindle seal surface, so I carefully honed them down to start with clean, smooth surfaces. The deepest scorings were not on the two seals that recently failed, so I discounted them as a cause of failure.

BTW Boris, I believe Kodiak changed the design of the plastic cap to virtually eliminate a rock strike problem. It is now only 1/4" thick and very robust plastic (or urethane); maybe a bullet could penetrate it!

Thanks all for your testimonials and information. This has been one of my worst problems (and fears) of trailering long distance.
 
My previous disc rotors were Stainless Steel, 1/4" junk from Tie Down Engineering (now a defunct company).
Click to expand...

I wonder what you are basing that statement on? Tie Down is a viable company with many facets of products in many industries. The axle and associated parts was sold to Dexter in 2017. Dexter also appears to be in good financial condition.

Thanks
 
Sorry Dr Bob, I stand corrected on Tie Down Engineering, thanks. I 'presumed' Tie Down was gone because when I put in the saved URL I have, I get redirected to eTrailer. Probably computer magic, I don't know.

Another correction. I meant I found shallow 'grooves' on my spindle sealing surfaces, not ridges.

Oh, and on the filling of the hubs with grease 100% or 50%. Some say 50% is the magic amount, I believe Buddy Bearing says 100%, which is what I did with the new hubs 2 years ago. I had 2 years with no problems, then the last 800 mile trip blew 2 seals which heavily greased the rotors and disc pads on those hubs.
 
Anyone has the VORTEX hubs on their trailer? You suppositely pump new grease in a center nipple and old grease comes out of the front perimeter of the hub. You stop pumping when new grease comes out...
How often do you replace the grease? How much grease does it take for 4 hubs?
 
alainP said:
Anyone has the VORTEX hubs on their trailer? You suppositely pump new grease in a center nipple and old grease comes out of the front perimeter of the hub. You stop pumping when new grease comes out... /quote]

Isn't that the way they all work?
Click to expand...
 
alainP":25fg6huf said:
Anyone has the VORTEX hubs on their trailer? You suppositely pump new grease in a center nipple and old grease comes out of the front perimeter of the hub. You stop pumping when new grease comes out...
How often do you replace the grease? How much grease does it take for 4 hubs?
Click to expand...

I just put new 6000# torsion axles on our trailer with that system. It took a full tube and a half to grease to fill the 4 hubs (1-3/4 inner bearings). One thing that I think causes people problems is that they don't rotate the hub during the grease pumping. Rotating the hub allows an even amount of grease to be filled rather than all of it piling up at the small hole between the seal and the inner bearing. I like this system vs. bearing buddies but the oil bath sounds good too.
 
The one thing with pumping grease in until it comes out is that you cannot see the path the grease takes through the bearing. It takes the path of least resistance.

In a different situation but similar situation I worked on machines that required greasing of bearings on heavy moving parts. The maintenance instructions said pump grease into the zerk fitting until grease comes out the perimeter of the bearing. Pretty typical stuff. However, in this design, if the grease got old it would gum up and dry out. Then when you pumped in the grease it would form the shortest path to the bearing perimeter. To the tech lubricating the bearing it was doing what the instructions said (grease in, grease out, job done). Only after all the bearings got destroyed did we find that the new grease was not actually going very far into the bearings. After this happened, we would take the bearings apart and pack them by hand (like they used to teach you in auto class).
 
Thanks Bradmond,
I am ordering 2 tubes of the Lucas Marine stuff , It certainly has not been 100,000 miles on the hubs but very close to 6 years so.. lets get pumping!
jacking up the axle and rotating the wheel while pumping the grease is the thing to do, did I get that right?
 
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