Waterproof Grease in trailer wheel bearings

davidpbo

davidpbo

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Boatless in Cheshire. Formerly 23ft Jeanneau Tonic
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When we first got our boat I serviced/replaced the bearings as necessary and used Duckhams Keenol grease, now sadly no longer available. I am about to inspect/service prior to end of season pull out.

If I replace the grease should I use waterproof? Does it offer additional protection to the bearings. They are tapered roller bearings ang get dunked (Cold because there is always rigging/derigging before hand).

Am I likely to find waterproof sealed bearings as a replacement to tapered bearings?.

The cables are more than ten years old. How would you check for corrosion? They were liberally filled with oil when I got them.

Wish I could find the Indespension trailer servicing book I used to have.
Have found the relevant section on line here

Also similar for Knott
 
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Ramonol white grease is sold as the replacement for Keenol. http://www.gruebb.com/controlpanel/shoppics/pdfs/GruebbRamonolWhiteTDSnewstyle.pdf

However for trailer wheel bearings Ramonol Universal would probably be a better choice http://www.gruebb.com/controlpanel/shoppics/pdfs/GruebbRamonolUniversalTDS2pdf.pdf


There is a tendency to want to fully pack wheel bearings with grease, pumping in more fresh grease via the grease nipples in an attempt to keep water out. However while this may be Ok for a trailer used for short low speed journeys it is not right for bearings that will enjoy long high speed journeys.

Lakesailor used to caution about over packing bearings and i agree with him although I do tend to put in a rather more grease than the minimal amounts he recommended. My procedure is to work grease into the bearing around the balls or rollers and to approximately half fill, but no more, the free space that will be left in the hub when fitted to the axle. Likewise no more that half fill the cap.

My experience is that the grease in an over packed bearing can overheat and lose its consistency

Sealed and semi-sealed bearings do exist but they cost rather more than the standard bearings. I don't know if they are worth the extra or not. I have not tried them. I prefer not to immerse a road trailer.

Cannot comment on the brake cables. Mine are plain wire cables run around pulley wheels without an outer sheath. I coat them in Waxoyl.
 
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There are no waterproof bearings for common boat trailers. There are dust seals on some bearings but they are unlikely to be interchangeable with taper bearings because the stub axle and hub will be different. In addition in my experience you have no chance of changing a sealed bearing at the road side. Whilst a taper bearing can be changed with a hammer and large screw driver assuming you carry a spare set and rear seal plus split pin. Indespension were always expensive so take a bearing out and note the numbers on the bearing then seek a local bearing supplier. 10 years for cables is good, how long do you intend to keep the trailer is probably the way to think about it.
 
davidpbo said:
The cables are more than ten years old. How would you check for corrosion? They were liberally filled with oil when I got them.

/QUOTE]


Bowden cables are the weakest link in trailer sailing!

If we ever dunked our trailer in sea water we would unclip the cables from the brake assemblies and equalizer bar,
hang them vertically with the cup end at the top.
Leave to allow water to drain for 24 hours
Fill with with diesel until it starts running out of the bottom.
Repeat with old sump oil or two stroke oil whichever I had to hand.



Replace cables and operate the brake on and off to check that brakes are free....

usually were tending to stick on.


So
Remove drum and lighly grease brake mechanism and clean and repack bearings at same time

It might be advisable to chock your trailer if loaded!

Never had a problem with bearings it was always the Bowdens


If the inner and outer core will not easily move in relation to each other then repeat excercise until free or bin them!

I tried fitting grease nipples at the cup end but could not get the grease to travel along the length as much as diesel.
Click to expand...
 
davidpbo said:
I hear what has been said about not over packing.
Click to expand...

I overpack my bearings. It works really well for me. The bearings last for years whereas I had to replace them yearly when packed correctly.

BUT!

I only travel a couple of miles to the slipway. If I was planning a long journey I would probably 'unpack' before travelling.
 
TheOrs said:
I overpack my bearings. It works really well for me. The bearings last for years whereas I had to replace them yearly when packed correctly.

BUT!

I only travel a couple of miles to the slipway. If I was planning a long journey I would probably 'unpack' before travelling.
Click to expand...

A friend of mine put grease nipples on his bearings and gives them a few pumps before launching. He has a small hole in the hub cap to relieve the pressure caused when they are warm.

Closer inspection of the bowden cables showed the outer plastic cracked at the end where it goes into the hub attachment.
 
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Pladdatoo said:
Bearing savers or as the Americans call them Bearing Buddies.
I've seen/heard good things about them.
Click to expand...

We have bearing savers on our Indespension Roller Coaster 7, and I can vouch for them fully. The basic idea is that a spring and seal arrangement keeps a small pressure of 3 psi inside the hub and bearings, thereby preventing water ingress. Our axles get dunked up to ten times a year (albeit with copius flushing of the wheels after each immersion), and I only replaced the bearings after seven years, and only then because I was replacing the brake assembly at the same time. The bearings were still in excellent condition.

We use Renolit Aqua 2 (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fuchs-REN...Water-Resistant-Grease-500g-Tub-/181200044522) and fully pack the bearing. Any excess pressure say from a long journey heating the grease just forces it out a small vent hole so the pressure remains constant. Packing it also reduces further any water ingress into the bearing.

More details at https://shetlandf4.wordpress.com/trailer/.
 
I will have to see whether my bearings can take the rear seal you mention. Good write up, thank you.

rbmatthews said:
We have bearing savers on our Indespension Roller Coaster 7, and I can vouch for them fully. The basic idea is that a spring and seal arrangement keeps a small pressure of 3 psi inside the hub and bearings, thereby preventing water ingress. Our axles get dunked up to ten times a year (albeit with copius flushing of the wheels after each immersion), and I only replaced the bearings after seven years, and only then because I was replacing the brake assembly at the same time. The bearings were still in excellent condition.

We use Renolit Aqua 2 (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fuchs-REN...Water-Resistant-Grease-500g-Tub-/181200044522) and fully pack the bearing. Any excess pressure say from a long journey heating the grease just forces it out a small vent hole so the pressure remains constant. Packing it also reduces further any water ingress into the bearing.

More details at https://shetlandf4.wordpress.com/trailer/.
Click to expand...
 
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I wish I had not missed the other recommendations for water resistant grease. Ramonol Universal is a tad expensive and I thought I needed 3 tubs.

There is some corrosion on the shoulder the seal runs on, I think someone mentioned something about a seal repair kit, I don't know whether it was in this thread or others could someone point me in the right direction again please.

I am still deliberating on bearing savers and want as good a seal as possible on the back.

The stub axle is inserted into an axle beam and replacing those again is not an option.



I have cleaned the bearings with Gunk. Should I rinse off with water before re-packing with Ramonol?

The new cables are nice and have less friction than the ones they are replacing.
 
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Pete7 said:
There are no waterproof bearings for common boat trailers........
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I replaced both the axles on my trailer a couple of years ago with ones made by ALKO. They came with "waterproof" bearings.

I keep her at home so it gets dunked ever time we go sailing so it's probably been in the water about fifty times since. I've got a flush kit fitted that I use each time, and it obviously gets the benefit of a long run (always over an hour) after retrieval to get home, but it can spend a week or two sitting in the yard whilst we're away sailing after a launch. I did have to replace the brake linings after we got back from Croatia this summer but so far no issues with the bearings, and I have pulled the hubs off and checked them a couple of times. Being sealed I can't grease them, but they still run smoothly and actually they look easier to knock out of the hubs than the two part tapers I had on the old axles.
 
You are correct they are sealed but its a dust seal not a waterproof seal. You will notice that the alko bearings resemble a remarkable likeness to Golf Mk 1 wheel bearings so if you know the size required a trailer dealer may not be the cheapest source. The last set of alko bearings I changed needed a trip to Trailer Tek in Alton to use their press. Rated for 20 tonnes we could see the beam bending before the bearing released with a crack like a gun going off. The good news was Halfords refunded me on the 1/2 breaker bar I snapped using a scafolding pole to get the hub nut off. A 3/4" braker bar and a set of big sockets from the tank repair section removed the nut. I don't think the bearings had been changed on this SBS trailer for some time and afterwards didn't rate my chances of changing an Alko bearing at the side of the road.

This one was a friend who lost a wheel about 10pm on a New Years Eve. Had him back on the road quickly because he had taper bearings in the hubs.

attachment.php
 
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The hubs came off at the first attempt with the electric impact gun I carry for wheel changes, and the set of bearings I knocked out for inspection were removed with a drift and medium hammer. Guess I was just incredibly lucky....four times.
 
I've trailed boats and horse trailers for about 40yrs and I can tell you that, as some have said already, bearing manufacturers don't yet make watertight bearings. In fact I've tried all the recommended ways to keep water out and only those bearings used on land will last without much maintenance.
Years ago I used to pack out bearings to a recommended standard so that the grease doesn't overheat, but then I found that using the trailer in salt water and having to drop the wheels in past the bearings because of some slips, I was replacing bearings yearly and they were well rusted. Over the years I've found a lot depends upon usage, if you only travel down the road, like TheOrs and pack the bearings out, they can last a while. I tried using all sorts of greases to combat salt water and even resulted in using rather expensive Quicksilver 2-4-C at one time, but found in my case the bearings slipped on the axles because of the texture and possibly the Teflon. I have used Fuchs Renolit and can say that it works very well and when I packed out the bearings they were better than if not, but still required some replacing yearly and I have to say it coped with the heat from high speed driving over distance.
I eventually found Bearing Buddies, commonly called Bearing Savers over here, which are fitted to most new trailers these days and they worked perfectly. I tried them with different greases from Fuchs to Q8 Reubens, to Morris K99 and they worked fine, except they blew out the standard rear seals which come with the tapered rear bearings.

Most newer trailers fitted with tapered bearings now come with extra rear seals to deal with the pressure from the savers. In my case the trailer I had didn't have these so although the Bearing Buddies worked better, they blew the rear seals and plastered the brake plate and brakes with grease, surprisingly enough I still had some braking, you would have thought the grease would have counteracted the brakes. I therefore ordered some new rear seals from Bearing Buddies in the US, they call them Spindle Seals and they are really only a pretty standard type of oil seal which are used on engines etc. However it was easier to get the right sizes and use theirs rather than hunt around forever trying to get the right ones off eBay for example.

http://bearingbuddy.com/spindle.html

Once these were installed, all has been fine, I have had the current bearings, all four wheels, installed for about 3 yrs. They are inspected every year and so far are very quiet when spun up. I have also had to resort to using some bearing retainer on a couple of the axles, I use Truloc 211. It's a medium strength adhesive and can be used for a bearing which is slightly loose on the axle. I was extremely sceptical at first and though the weight would destroy this stuff, but have used it for a number of years and its great. As it is medium strength, its not too bad to remove.

Quote "Could I use a bearing with fitted seal like this instead? "

The answer to this question is above, it will blow with Bearing Savers. However as far as I am aware, but could be wrong, this is normally the rear bearing for tapered roller bearings.

One more thing, I've been informed that there is no such thing as waterproof grease. Well that's not strictly true, Quicksilver 101, 2-4-C and Ramanol White grease etc. seem to be pretty waterproof to me and great if used on parts that are slow moving and require lubricant in drastic conditions, but and this is the "but" they are not good for high speed wheel bearings. Marine wheel bearing grease should be water resistant, meaning the soap used is mixed with oil and other substances so that it will lubricate at high speed as well as resist emulsification and what they call, water washout.

I hope this is useful.
 
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