Are my eyes playing tricks on me?

Well, they are sealed, kind of. :)

Not really. A sealed bearing is what you would have on the front hubs of your ram truck. Sealed bearings do not require lubrication, they tend to be more closed off, offering no route for contaminants to enter
 
Not really. A sealed bearing is what you would have on the front hubs of your ram truck. Sealed bearings do not require lubrication, they tend to be more closed off, offering no route for contaminants to enter
Yes, I know, it was a joke. :) There are bearings, and there are seals, ergo sealed bearing. :)
 
I believe the old style (bearing/race ) integrated into the brake hub, the grease would get changed out every brake job, at least they did for my vehicles so equipped, so not the 150K-300+K sealed bearings of today.
 
Regarding your Awning LED's. You may have multicolour LEDs. Take a real close look at a single LED. If you see 3 or 4 individual dies within the led 'chip', the LED strip is capable of multicolor. If it is a single die, they are white only. Another way to check is see if the strip is fed with 3 or 4 wires instead of 2 only. If 3 or 4, the strip is multicolour. Whether your trailer is set to make use of that is another question however.
On the bearing topic. We had a trailer (Carriage Cameo) a number of years ago that had "Nev-R-Lube" bearings. While we never had a problem with them, others did. Those that did have a problem said they were a royal pain as they were hard to get and used a different spindle than normal. You couldn't simply replace them with standard bearings.
-Rob-

This is an example of a multicolour LED. Note the multiple dies within the chip and the 3 connection points.
IMG_8947.jpeg
 
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Maybe it's just me or maybe I've been lucky with 3 RVs but here's my RV bearing history...

First RV I owned was a pop-up. I had it for 8 years and repacked the bearings once after about 3 years and they looked fine when I did it.
Next was a 30' TT that I had for 13 years and cleaned and repacked the bearings 3 times in all of those years... never any bearing failures.
I now have my 5er purchased new in early 2019 and decided to repack my bearings this past December after 5 years and over 28,500 miles on them. With my brother-in-laws help we did all 4 wheels in a couple of hours. Thoroughly cleaned all of the old grease out and inspected the bearings...they looked just like the brand new bearings I had sitting there in case they were needed. No burn spots, no pitting or any signs of needing replacement. I repacked the bearings and put them back in and also packed one of the new ones and sealed them in double Ziploc bags to keep with me on the road. I guess I don't see the need for repacking bearings every 8,000 miles or every 12 months. My bearings had plenty of grease in them and some in the hub and it was only slightly darker than the new grease that went back in.
 
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We had a trailer (Carriage Cameo) a number of years ago that had "Nev-R-Lube" bearings. While we never had a problem with them, others did.
I had a Titanium trailer with those bearings. Horrible idea in my opinion. You could not repair on the side of the road or a remote area. The bearings needed to be pressed on and off with a hydraulic press. So...in the interest of not ruining a trip you needed to carry an entire spindle assembly with you and change that if you had a bearing issue rather than two cup/cone bearings in a zip lock bag
 
"Even though I swapped out my OEM bearings for Timkens, I'm under the impression that *most* bearing failures in our type of trailers are not a result of China made vs. whatever, but just a lack of general maintenance to begin with."

Over the years I've noticed that quite a few of the posts on various forums about wheel bearing issues, start with the phrase: "I just had the wheel bearing maintenance done and...". Maybe just me I but I honestly think a person is best served by pulling the wheels on their new, or new-to-them trailer, and checking the state of lubrication in the wheel bearings and packing as needed. I think the factory assembly lubrication leaves a bit to be desired.

IMO...and you know what they say about those...a lot of bearing failures are what Howard alludes to. Just after service. And I have to think it is owners or dealer 'techs' not adjusting preload correctly. The bearings themselves don't need a lot of grease to last a long time. Certainly not what you end up pumping into a wheel hub through the EZ-Zerk. Ever pull a seal off a new sealed bearing? You would be surprised how little grease is in there. More air than grease.
So I'll bet there are very few failures caused by a lack of grease. And if you adjust preload correctly, going 3-5 years between repacks would not be unreasonable imo even though the Dexter manual says pull apart and inspect every 12 months EZ-Lube or not.
 
IMO...and you know what they say about those...a lot of bearing failures are what Howard alludes to. Just after service. And I have to think it is owners or dealer 'techs' not adjusting preload correctly. The bearings themselves don't need a lot of grease to last a long time. Certainly not what you end up pumping into a wheel hub through the EZ-Zerk. Ever pull a seal off a new sealed bearing? You would be surprised how little grease is in there. More air than grease.
So I'll bet there are very few failures caused by a lack of grease. And if you adjust preload correctly, going 3-5 years between repacks would not be unreasonable imo even though the Dexter manual says pull apart and inspect every 12 months EZ-Lube or not.
I certainly agree Scott, we had a bearing engineer come in one time, and they counseled us that too much grease was almost, only almost mind you, as bad as too little because of the heat the excess grease will generate. And it sucks power to drive the grease packed bearing. And I have pulled the seals on sealed bearings, and you're right, the amount of grease inside can be pretty disconcerting if you're expecting it to be well packed.
 
ive used EZLube since 2011 and never any bering ,seal,brake issues. You take off rubber cap & use a hand pump style grease gun and pump till DIRTY grease stops coming out all the while rotating wheel. They are designed to push grease out the front and not made like conventional bering & axles. That comment about boats ," Bering Buddies" spindle caps are a totally different item. They are just a a cap with a spring to keep pressure on the grease after the axle is pumped full to supposedly keep water out. Ive had a few boat trailer bering failures with those on the trailer.
NEVER use any kind of powered grease gun

If the hub has been filled by previous greasings....You would get a section of dirty grease exiting, followed by clean grease.....Do not stop there. The dirty grease you saw was from the outer bearing. The inner bearing dirty grease is still in there.. Somewhere. You need to keep pumping more grease in until a second section of dirty grease exits. This grease has a longer trip, so it will take almost an entire tube before it appears. And depending on how skilled you are with pumping while rotating the tire, it probably will not all exit evenly. Failure to do this will leave the dirty grease in there. Without xray vision you cannot see just where. It could have made into the outer bearing!
As you can see, using this system has a lot of drawbacks. cost of 4 tubes of grease for starters. Then the pontential of greasing the brakes, and finally the chance of leaving dirty grease in a bearing. The sucess you have had so far is just luck. At some point, luck runs out.
 
ive used EZLube since 2011 and never any bering ,seal,brake issues. You take off rubber cap & use a hand pump style grease gun and pump till DIRTY grease stops coming out all the while rotating wheel. They are designed to push grease out the front and not made like conventional bering & axles. That comment about boats ," Bering Buddies" spindle caps are a totally different item. They are just a a cap with a spring to keep pressure on the grease after the axle is pumped full to supposedly keep water out. Ive had a few boat trailer bering failures with those on the trailer.
NEVER use any kind of powered grease gun

Just curious as to how long have you've gone between using the EZ Lube and repacking? You say 2011 so thats how many different trailers?
 
Wondering why DEXTER EZ-Lube prescribes 12 month inspection??

IMO...and you know what they say about those...a lot of bearing failures are what Howard alludes to. Just after service. And I have to think it is owners or dealer 'techs' not adjusting preload correctly. The bearings themselves don't need a lot of grease to last a long time. Certainly not what you end up pumping into a wheel hub through the EZ-Zerk. Ever pull a seal off a new sealed bearing? You would be surprised how little grease is in there. More air than grease.
So I'll bet there are very few failures caused by a lack of grease. And if you adjust preload correctly, going 3-5 years between repacks would not be unreasonable imo even though the Dexter manual says pull apart and inspect every 12 months EZ-Lube or not.

Wondering why DEXTER EZ-Lube prescribes 12 month inspection??
Are there no retired lawyers out there in this forum? IMO, they say this to prevent any chance of a lawsuit or any warranty claims if you have a failure and can’t prove you did the minimum prescribed maintenance.
That said, I do use the EZ-Lube feature on my axles. I’m not waiting to use the EZ-Lube till I need to service the hubs and try to push out / change out all the grease in one shot like a standard repacking. I don’t think that EZ-Lube was designed to do that and (IMO) if you do it this way you’re asking for trouble.

My theory is that a little fresh grease flowing thru the EZ-Lube to the bearings is better than pack it and leave it. The bonus for me is that I don’t have to pull the hubs until I need a brake job, with properly adjusted drums that should be a long time and that will make me a happy camper.

I’ve never pumped an entire tube of grease all at once to fill the voids between the bearings. I’ve never blown grease past the inner seal and soaked the brakes. After doing this process for several trips now I usually see some grease seepage coming thru the outer bearing while I’m pumping in the fresh.

I add 3-4 pumps of grease at the end of a days trip (300-400 miles) while the hubs are still warm right after unhitching. I use the hydraulic system to unhitch / auto level the trailer and then use the manual setting to lift all 4 tires off the ground so I can spin them while I’m pumping 3-4 shots of grease. I can get the whole process done in about 20-30 minutes. I’ll hit the wet bolts every 3rd stop while I’m at it. This process also allows me to feel how much if any drag there is from the hub/brakes while they are hot and keep them adjusted if needed.

I feel sorry for those of you that don’t have hydraulic levelers and have to drag out a jack then go wheel by wheel…. I guess you could level your trailer then use a bottle jack to go thru this process.

One question I don’t see asked / answered in this thread is what grease to use on the hubs. Are you using hi-temp disc brake grease, standard “tube” grease, synthetic or “oem Dexter” ??
I have drum brakes that don’t need hi-temp disc brake grease like most cars / trucks that have rebuildable front hubs with disc brakes / rotors. Do y’all with disc conversions use hi-temp?

I’m using LUCAS Red-n-Tacky tube grease. The Red-n-Tacky is flowing nicely thru the bearings. The grease passing thru to the outer bearing is abviously used but I’m not getting any noticeable contamination coming past the removable hub cover into the grease.
I did invest in a professional grade grease gun, I highly recommend the LockNLube grease gun, $70.00 on AMAZON. It has a positive locking tip that grabs the zerk and it doesn’t blow grease out all over the place.
 
IMO...and you know what they say about those...a lot of bearing failures are what Howard alludes to. Just after service. And I have to think it is owners or dealer 'techs' not adjusting preload correctly. The bearings themselves don't need a lot of grease to last a long time. Certainly not what you end up pumping into a wheel hub through the EZ-Zerk. Ever pull a seal off a new sealed bearing? You would be surprised how little grease is in there. More air than grease.
So I'll bet there are very few failures caused by a lack of grease. And if you adjust preload correctly, going 3-5 years between repacks would not be unreasonable imo even though the Dexter manual says pull apart and inspect every 12 months EZ-Lube or not.

Really, I'm trying to think of what the difference is between RV wheel bearings and early automobile wheel bearings (60's to 90's say)? We never pulled the wheels to grease the bearings until it was time to replace the brakes. When we did re-pack, we pulled the bearings and washed them down completely as well as inspecting the race for heat discoloration. If the drum or rotor needed to be replaced, they got new bearings and races. And then, as you point out, the key was not over-tightening the castle nut.
 
Big sigh, not sure why folks just don't repack bears the old fashioned way. It isn't that hard. Zero risk of blowing out the rear seal, and inspect the brakes and actual bearing surfaces for damage and wear.

I just did mine for the first time after about 8k miles. The grease wasnt bad, and the bearing looked great, no scoring or discoloration. repacked them, new inner seal and torqued to spec and loosened and finger tight on the nut as manual states. new cotter pin.
 
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Big sigh, not sure why folks just don't repack bears the old fashioned way. It isn't that hard. Zero risk of blowing out the rear seal, and inspect the brakes and actual bearing surfaces for damage and wear.

I just did mine for the first time after about 8k miles. The grease wasnt bad, and the bearing looked great, no scoring or discoloration. repacked them, new inner seal and torqued to spec and loosened and finger tight on the nut as manual states. new cotter pin.

There is no doubt that a complete disassembly and inspection is the best assurance as you say. I will do that when the time comes.

I agree with what John said:

Really, I'm trying to think of what the difference is between RV wheel bearings and early automobile wheel bearings (60's to 90's say)? We never pulled the wheels to grease the bearings until it was time to replace the brakes.

John nails it on his point about when to service bearings based on years of history with older vehicles that had drums and now hi-temp discs with rotor hub assemblies. I feel sorry for those of you with disposable unit bearings…. I got rid of mine with a YUKON free spin kit.

The issue for me is the service interval.
If I can go 50-75 thousand miles on a set of front pads on my 92 F-150 and don’t pull the rotors off till I do a brake job, then why am I doing the trailer bearings at 8k??
Since you found perfect bearings at 8k then I assume you didn’t need brakes either.

Dexter issues a CYA service interval at 12 months not mileage. Can you tow 100k in 12 months?
I’m pulling this trailer around 10k per year and I’m still going on my 3rd year. I add some fresh grease with the EZ-Lube because it’s there and if it wasn’t I would still keep going till I need a brake job or I see a temp spike on the hub or feel / hear something strange when I spin them. I use a point n shoot digital thermometer to look for any excessive heat building up in the hubs or tires.

I’ve never toasted a trailer hub on any of my other trailers over the years. IMO, Utility trailers w/o brakes are the ones to look out for because a lot of people typically run them till they are dead with dry-rotting tires and never pulling a hub. Or, the weekend warriors that tow-store-tow-store-tow like a madman and don’t take the time to do a legit pre-trip inspection because it’s Thursday evening and the campgrounds will be filled up by Friday morning… then busting their hump to get home in time to get to work the next day. Rinse and repeat till it falls apart in the side of the road…

The hubs I’ve seen that got toasted were due to complete neglect, setting the bearings too tight and never lifting the tire off the ground to feel or hear how it spins. You can hear a set of dry bearings clicking or sticking in the hub when you spin them.
Preventative maintenance is an absolute necessity but there is a reasonable argument for a longer service interval if your paying attention to other signs n symptoms that come up before a complete failure. JMHO
 
There is no doubt that a complete disassembly and inspection is the best assurance as you say. I will do that when the time comes.

I agree with what John said:

Really, I'm trying to think of what the difference is between RV wheel bearings and early automobile wheel bearings (60's to 90's say)? We never pulled the wheels to grease the bearings until it was time to replace the brakes.

John nails it on his point about when to service bearings based on years of history with older vehicles that had drums and now hi-temp discs with rotor hub assemblies. I feel sorry for those of you with disposable unit bearings…. I got rid of mine with a YUKON free spin kit.

The issue for me is the service interval.
If I can go 50-75 thousand miles on a set of front pads on my 92 F-150 and don’t pull the rotors off till I do a brake job, then why am I doing the trailer bearings at 8k??
Since you found perfect bearings at 8k then I assume you didn’t need brakes either.

Dexter issues a CYA service interval at 12 months not mileage. Can you tow 100k in 12 months?
I’m pulling this trailer around 10k per year and I’m still going on my 3rd year. I add some fresh grease with the EZ-Lube because it’s there and if it wasn’t I would still keep going till I need a brake job or I see a temp spike on the hub or feel / hear something strange when I spin them. I use a point n shoot digital thermometer to look for any excessive heat building up in the hubs or tires.

I’ve never toasted a trailer hub on any of my other trailers over the years. IMO, Utility trailers w/o brakes are the ones to look out for because a lot of people typically run them till they are dead with dry-rotting tires and never pulling a hub. Or, the weekend warriors that tow-store-tow-store-tow like a madman and don’t take the time to do a legit pre-trip inspection because it’s Thursday evening and the campgrounds will be filled up by Friday morning… then busting their hump to get home in time to get to work the next day. Rinse and repeat till it falls apart in the side of the road…

The hubs I’ve seen that got toasted were due to complete neglect, setting the bearings too tight and never lifting the tire off the ground to feel or hear how it spins. You can hear a set of dry bearings clicking or sticking in the hub when you spin them.
Preventative maintenance is an absolute necessity but there is a reasonable argument for a longer service interval if your paying attention to other signs n symptoms that come up before a complete failure. JMHO

I absolutely agree with this reasoning. I too see no difference in wheel bearing maintenance of a travel trailer/5th wheel, or a modern motor vehicle if the bearings and seals were installed properly. The only time I clean and repack wheel bearings is if doing brake service or have to pull the hub for other reasons. Of course, I always check hub temp whenever I stop at a rest area but have never found a hot hub. Lucky maybe?
 
Wondering why DEXTER EZ-Lube prescribes 12 month inspection??
Are there no retired lawyers out there in this forum? IMO, they say this to prevent any chance of a lawsuit or any warranty claims if you have a failure and can’t prove you did the minimum prescribed maintenance.
That said, I do use the EZ-Lube feature on my axles. I’m not waiting to use the EZ-Lube till I need to service the hubs and try to push out / change out all the grease in one shot like a standard repacking. I don’t think that EZ-Lube was designed to do that and (IMO) if you do it this way you’re asking for trouble.

My theory is that a little fresh grease flowing thru the EZ-Lube to the bearings is better than pack it and leave it. The bonus for me is that I don’t have to pull the hubs until I need a brake job, with properly adjusted drums that should be a long time and that will make me a happy camper.

I’ve never pumped an entire tube of grease all at once to fill the voids between the bearings. I’ve never blown grease past the inner seal and soaked the brakes. After doing this process for several trips now I usually see some grease seepage coming thru the outer bearing while I’m pumping in the fresh.

I add 3-4 pumps of grease at the end of a days trip (300-400 miles) while the hubs are still warm right after unhitching. I use the hydraulic system to unhitch / auto level the trailer and then use the manual setting to lift all 4 tires off the ground so I can spin them while I’m pumping 3-4 shots of grease. I can get the whole process done in about 20-30 minutes. I’ll hit the wet bolts every 3rd stop while I’m at it. This process also allows me to feel how much if any drag there is from the hub/brakes while they are hot and keep them adjusted if needed.

I feel sorry for those of you that don’t have hydraulic levelers and have to drag out a jack then go wheel by wheel…. I guess you could level your trailer then use a bottle jack to go thru this process.

One question I don’t see asked / answered in this thread is what grease to use on the hubs. Are you using hi-temp disc brake grease, standard “tube” grease, synthetic or “oem Dexter” ??
I have drum brakes that don’t need hi-temp disc brake grease like most cars / trucks that have rebuildable front hubs with disc brakes / rotors. Do y’all with disc conversions use hi-temp?

I’m using LUCAS Red-n-Tacky tube grease. The Red-n-Tacky is flowing nicely thru the bearings. The grease passing thru to the outer bearing is abviously used but I’m not getting any noticeable contamination coming past the removable hub cover into the grease.
I did invest in a professional grade grease gun, I highly recommend the LockNLube grease gun, $70.00 on AMAZON. It has a positive locking tip that grabs the zerk and it doesn’t blow grease out all over the place.

This method will get the inner bearing some new grease. The outers, not so much...IMO, with the outers being smaller, I think they need it worse.
 
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