Trailer bearings

J

journey on

New member
This seems to be the year everything on the boat went pearshaped. This topic covers the bearings on the E-Z Loader trailer. Pat Anderson and I bought our boats about the same time: ~5 years ago. We are both hauling a CD-25. Pat has a King and I have an E-Z loader. The axle bearings should be the same, as for most other heavy duty trailers. Pat did the right thing and went to a trailer repair place. I've changed my own, and I'm going to share that experience. Ready or not. Especially if your boat trailer is 5 or more years old. Even if you have someone else do it, the information may be helpful. Again, it may not.

First, the bearings were changed by EZ Loader right after I got the boat, so we can count on the fact that they lasted 5 years. And only have ~20,000 miles on them. So I was surprised when I drained the oil bath hubs and found silver in the oil. I pulled the hubs and found that both the rollers and races were galled and starting to disintegrate. No failures, just worn out. Thank goodness I got them in time. And one had a leaking seal, which means a new brake pad. The bearings were a Chinese brand. The hubs never got hot, just wear. The oil bath hubs showed no signs of water intrusion.

Now for getting new bearings. Bear with me. Note that this is the first time I've ever had to replace bearings on a trailer, travel or boat. And that includes one boat as heavy as the CD-25. So I'm looking for “good” bearings. The local truck/trailer supply sold me on Timken bearings, saying they were the best and not from China, though imported. Finally got some, but I had to search for a dealer through the Timken web site. Some of the bearings I got were made in the USA, some in Poland.

Here are the sizes for the bearings and seal. Since bearings are standard, the P/Ns are the same for all, just the mfg name changes. As we should be all be aware, each bearing has a outer race and the inner rollers and race.

Outer bearing:
Inner Roller Assy P/N 67048 Outer Race P/N 67010
Note: Timken prefix is LM (Light-Medium duty,) set P/N is SET 6
ID 1.2500 in OD 2.3280 in thickness 0.625

Inner Bearing
Inner Roller Assy P/N 25580 Outer Race P/N 25520
ID 1.7500 in OD 3.2650 in thickness 0.9375

Inner seal: Rubber coated is the only way over straight metal.
P/N Dexter 010-010-00 (Taiwan)

These are Reliable oil filled hubs and I use (per E-Z Loader recommendations) SAE 80W-90 Gear Oil. This is probably better than the 50W engine oil that Reliable recommends, since it's designed to lubricate bearings and gears. If your bearings are grease lubricated, remember to pack them before installing them.

Since a seal leaked, I needed 1 new brake pad. They come in axle sets of 4. The calipers are Kodiak.
P/N Kodiak 225.

I leave the mechanics of changing everything to thee.

Boris
 
journey on":2p7aqhh3 said:
Even if you have someone else do it, the information may be helpful. Again, it may not.

I leave the mechanics of changing everything to thee.

Boris
Click to expand...

Boris, you've covered all the bases!! :thup Could you see the silver pieces in the oil bath inspection window?

Certainly, the part numbers will be useful. I think Pat A. posted some p/n earlier, are they the same, I have not looked to see. Did you take pictures?

I'm about to haul the Cat a couple of hundred miles, our first trip since bringing her home. A mechanic (one I trust) said they looked good, spun the wheels and didn't feel anomolies and pronounced them road worthy. I didn't see any way to change the oil but didn't look too hard.

Charlie
 
One cannot see the particles through the plastic cover. It's a simple matter to drain the oil, which is how I found the stuff earlier. Just remove the plug in the side of the hub with an Allen wrench

I didn't take pictures cause it's a standard hub: unbolt brake caliper, remove hub cap, pull cotter pin, undo nut, pull hub, remove inner seal, hammer out old races, press in new, reassemble hub with new bearings and seal, add oil.

Boris
 
Boris,
Would you be able to see if water got into the oil bath hub just by looking? I have wondered if that would be one advantage of the oil bath over greased bearings?
 
My mechanic said if water was in there and you had just run the trailer, you would see the "froth". If it sits for awhile, the oil rises to the top and the water sits under it and you can see the layers.

Charlie
 
Charlie,
I was thinking maybe you would see a color change. I have had leaks in the lower unit and you sure can tell by the milky color if any water has leaked in.
 
I would think that you could see a colour change in the bearing oil if water entered. The colour of the oil has been dark honey from the bottle, and then it turns black. The trailer has plastic caps and they are clear enough to tell dark from light colour. I've often wondered why the oil bath doesn't suck oil in when they are dunked into cold water, but even with the leaking seal, no water.

And by the way, I can't find a socket with which to remove those caps. The socket size recommended by the factory (2 13/16??) doesn't work since the caps have rounded corners. I've often wondered how they remove/tighten those caps at the factory. I use a strap wrench, with a (gasp) pipe wrench to loosen stubborn caps.

The EZ Loader factory said that replacement caps are aluminum. I don't know how those let you check the oil level.

Boris
 
Sorry, but I screwed up. Now that I found the light, here is updated info on the hub grease seals.

Correct P/N: TCM 21334TC This is NOT a DIXON number.

As far as I know this seal is only available from E-Z Loader Parts@ $5.50 ea. And make sure they sent the above TCM P/N. My problem is that I ordered 5 seals from them (thinking ahead,) and they sent me 2 ea. TCM seals and 3 ea. Dixon. So much for thinking ahead. After I found out there was a difference, I called E-Z Loader and asked why the Dixon seals. Their answer was: "we don't know. Are you sure we sent them to you? The correct P/N is 21334TC" FYI, I still had the box and those seals were from them. They are a little flaky.

One cannot get those seals in SoCal either. There is an equivalent SKF/Chicago Rawhide P/N 21353, which costs $18.50 ea. Those are also not available in SoCal. I put it in here just as a piece of knowledge.

Boris
 
OK, here's a follow up on fixing the trailer hubs/brakes.

First, I took the boat to San Diego Bay after I did the above repairs. When I got home, I noticed both the port side trailer bearing seals were leaking, after a 80 mi. trip. On the port side I used the factory seals: TCM 21334TC, and the starboard side had the aftermarket seals: P/N Dexter 010-010-00 (Taiwan). Note that only the port side leaked.

Anyway, I pulled the hub and looked at the hub seal surface, which appeared galled. The nest step was to find repair shims which would install over the hub and give the seals a new surface. Took me a month, so I'm going to share the source: SKF Oil Seal Repair Sleeve. The proper size is 2.125 id by 0.5 width, and cost $25 ea. Note that a new axle is $800.

To install them I got a piece of 2 1/2" PVC pipe and bored the inside until the sleeve would slip inside. They went on easily. I also tried to use the Dexer 010-010-00 seals, but I couldn't drive them in straight, so I installed new factory seals. I previously used a machine shop to install the starboard side Dexter seals, but was too impatient this time.

After the hubs want on, I cleaned all the lube thrown on the brakes and installed new Kodiak pads. Note these are ceramic pads. Whilest doing this, I found that one caliper was stuck and not doing it's job. Ordered a new Cadmium plated caliper from: Kodiak Brake Caliper. Note that this caliper cost &80 from the internet, and EZ loader charges $170.

To further this ongoing saga, upon removing the brake line from the old caliper, I found the brake line rusted and twisted the line in two. Reference this topic: Rusted Trailer Brake Lines which I missed. Orderd new brake lines from EZ Loader. They only have steel brake lines in the same length as the original lines. If you do go through EZ Loader, make sure they supply the correct length, as they first sent me lines that were too short (and then closed down for the Thanksgiving holiday.) If you do buy the lines from Champion (suggested in the Rusted Brake Lines post,) note that both ends are fixed, which means that you install the new lines from the caliper out. That is, both ends are solid, one piece. The lines EZ sent me have a flare nut on one end.

OK, now to bleeding with a vacuum pump. If I don't add another missive, it went well.

Now for the basic question: who wrote the Shakespeare sonnets and plays?

Boris
 
Boris,

It depends on a person's point of view. For those who do not believe NASA really went to the moon, but do believe the Kennedy assassination involved a conspiracy that was covered up, as were alien landings in New Mexico, and furthermore believe the secrets of other complex conspiracies can be kept by large numbers of participants, it was clearly Sir Francis Bacon. For those of us whose world view is less exciting it was --- drum roll please --- William Shakespeare. :D

Greg
 
And all along I was thinking....................

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow for sure :oops:

Nice write up Boris. Thank you for all your trouble, and for taking the time.

Oh, BTW, Elvis has not left the building.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

IMGP2128.thumb.jpg
 
Well, I always thought that if the author was William Shakespeare, then by golly, he wrote them. Living in the backwoods of the world (LA and San Diego) I never knew that there was a controversy.

After reading this: "Who Wrote Shakespeare" by John Mitchell I now know there is a choice:

William Shakespeare, whoever he was and nobody knows as a fact.
Christopher Marlowe, a know writer of the Elizabethan era and collaborator of Will.
Francis Bacon, at least for the sonnets.
The Earl of Oxford as the author of Hamlet.
The Earl of Derby as the author of the French and Italian plays
William Shakspere, editor, the good businessman of Stratford-on-Avon who left his wife his second best bed in his will.

I will point out that none of this changes the plays, poems, sonnets that we know under the name of good old Will. They're the best writing in the English language.

Boris
 
Boris,

That is quite the saga. I was out of town for a good bit of the time you laid this all out, so I missed it.

I've got the same system from EZL, but in service only since about 2007, and on a single-axle trailer carrying about 1800 lbs (with trailer, all-up weight is about 2550 lbs). And, when I changed out the oil last year, no silvery shards, and the oil was dirty but not frothy or watery.

The piece of your situation that puzzles me is the "galling" of the bearings. It is really hard to understand how that could occur if there is lube in there, but I don't know diddly about bearings.

BTW, I replaced the fluid with 90 wt, per the EZL instructions.

Thanks for alerting me to the problem, and I will for sure watch those hubs and look for metal when I change the lube this spring.
 
A couple of years ago when I had bearing problems with the C Dory 25 trailer, I also had some gauling. There was still lubricant, but the bearing had overheated. In my case, I used a file and emery cloth to smooth the surface enough for the new bearings to run smoothly. Later we replaced the spindle.
 
OK, I can't resist this. Read at your own risk.

From Design of Machine Elements, Faries, 1955:

"The life of a ball bearing is defined as the number of operational hours at a particular speed, or as the total number of revolutions when evidence of fatigue becomes visible. Fatigue occurs in the form of spalling or flaking of small bits of material from the surface of a ring or a ball/roller, usually of a ring. A roller bearing which has failed does not seize or cause damage to other parts but becomes noisy, thereby giving warning."

When I examined the bearings on the trailer, they showed evidence of spalling. I used galling as a term which more people would be familiar and as a term to describe the damage to the spindle where the seal rubs, as Bob describes above.

So for the bearings the design parameters: load, environment, lubrication and speed, are entered into the manufactures design manual and a bearing size and type is found. Since the bearings on the trailer were from a Chinese manufacturer, there was no design manual (that I could find,) and I just replaced them with the highest quality bearing I could find, Timken. Since roller bearing life is statistical, I hope the probability of failure is low enough to let them last past my lifetime.

As to the galling, that is what I saw on the spindle. Replacing the EZ Loader spindle is done by replacing the axle due to the rubber torsion suspension. Since both leaking seals were on the same side the cost was $1600 plus shipping. Using repair sleeves is a common, accepted practice. It is used in rebuilt motors and auto transmissions as well as spindles.

Boris
 
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