leaking grease seal.

[Terryallan]

So the Tt has a hub leaking grease. going to take it to MM trucking in Lincolnton NC to get it fixed. According to them. They will more than likely have to do the brakes on that hub as well. Make sense?

BTW. M&M Trucking also has on the road repair for all you MH drivers

[Huntindog]

Gdetrailer wrote:

richardcoxid wrote:
When repacking the wheel bearings ALWAYS use: DOUBLE LIP SEALS WITH A GARTER SPRING and most of your grease leakage will be elimated!

Most folk do not realize that you MUST TURN the drum while adding grease since they never bothered to read the manuals.

Bet most folks simply plug the grease gun in with the wheels firmly planted to terra firma and never turn the drums.. Have read a lot of posts where someone would state that they "gave it a couple of squirts" each time before camping, bet they never raised a tire..

Turning the drums allows the grease to move through easier which reduces the pressure on the seals.

But as pointed out, why bother with the zerks, if you follow the AXLE manufacturers recommendation of inspecting the brakes and bearings yearly, it makes zero sense to pump grease in! That is just being lazy and taking the "EZ" way out and then whining and complaining when you end up with damaged grease laden brake shoes!

Chances of ever having grease laden brakes are pretty darn low if you pull the drums and hand repack the bearings, over almost 40 years messing with drum brakes (combined with autos and trailer axles) and have never had grease blow out the seals and on my brakes.

Messy, yeah, but that is what gloves are for.

First,I have never seen a grease seal that did not have a garter spring.AndI have seen a lot of them. Not saying they don't exist, but they must not be common.
Single, double and triple lips can be had.

As for the turning of the drums while greasing:
This one of the issues I have with this system.
YOU MUST rotate the drum at a slow AND consistent speed while pumping grease. The grease hole that feeds the inner bearing needs to have the bearing rotate over it to push out all of the old grease.Not rotating will result in just the dirty grease directly over the hole being pushed out.
The kicker is that it is difficult to do perfectly. the rotation of the drum and the speed of the pumping need to be coordinated to get all of the old grease out... IF you can do it perfectly, the old grease from the inner bearing will pretty much be replaced, while the old grease in the outer bearing is pushed out the end of the spindle. (IF THE ENTIRE HUB IS FILLED WITH GREASE) At this point many, including the Dexter "video" think they are done... But wait a minute! Where is the old grease from the inner bearing? It is still in the hub..... Somewhere. At some point in future grease pumpings, it will enter the outside bearing.The servicer will likely be unaware of this, as it cannot be seen. Worse, if the hubs are not perfectly filled with grease, this old grease may make an erractic journey to the outside bearing.
So to use this feature with a realistic chance of getting most of the old grease from BOTH bearings to exit the spindle., will require a LOT of pumping and rotating. Almost an entire tube per wheel!!
With all of this pumping and rotating going on, doing it perfectly is pretty hard, and there is a huge chance of pushing some grease past the seals. As has been already noted, grease guns operate from 5,000 to 14,000 PSI. No seal can stand up to those pressures.

So for those that just give them a pump or two once a year..."I don't know what you are doing,but your doing it wrong"

[Gdetrailer]

richardcoxid wrote:
When repacking the wheel bearings ALWAYS use: DOUBLE LIP SEALS WITH A GARTER SPRING and most of your grease leakage will be elimated!

Most folk do not realize that you MUST TURN the drum while adding grease since they never bothered to read the manuals.

Bet most folks simply plug the grease gun in with the wheels firmly planted to terra firma and never turn the drums.. Have read a lot of posts where someone would state that they "gave it a couple of squirts" each time before camping, bet they never raised a tire..

Turning the drums allows the grease to move through easier which reduces the pressure on the seals.

But as pointed out, why bother with the zerks, if you follow the AXLE manufacturers recommendation of inspecting the brakes and bearings yearly, it makes zero sense to pump grease in! That is just being lazy and taking the "EZ" way out and then whining and complaining when you end up with damaged grease laden brake shoes!

Chances of ever having grease laden brakes are pretty darn low if you pull the drums and hand repack the bearings, over almost 40 years messing with drum brakes (combined with autos and trailer axles) and have never had grease blow out the seals and on my brakes.

Messy, yeah, but that is what gloves are for.

[richardcoxid]

When repacking the wheel bearings ALWAYS use: DOUBLE LIP SEALS WITH A GARTER SPRING and most of your grease leakage will be elimated!

[Huntindog]

Terryallan wrote:
Ok. Yes it has Zerk fittings. however I don't think they are the culprit. I have been using TTs with ZERKs for more than 16 years with no problems. This axle was replaced 2 years ago because of a bad hub. the service guy told me it was best just to replace the axle, and as I was having them flipped, and they had to come off anyway. We did.

As per instructions I have always pumped grease into the hubs until grease appears around the center. I did the new ones the same way. One side of the new axle filled, and showed as soon as I started pumping. The other side did not. It took a long time to get grease to show. I just thought as it was new, it wasn't filled at the factory. As I look back. It more than likely had a bad seal from the factory. but since I didn't crawl under the Tt to look, and there was no grease on the cement under the TT. It got past me. And since it is now 2 years old. It is on me. I saw it as soon as I did crawl under the TT. Grease all over the back plate. So it will be done before we go again.

Yes the brakes worked great until the last trip we took this fall. They still worked, still stopped the TT. But just didn't feel right. so I'm taking it to M&M to have it done. This is not the same place that raised the TT.

M&M Trucking is owned, and operated by a friend of mine. He started it from scratch about 15 years ago. It is also a on call road service garage. He is also a camping buddy. The shop has a excellent reputation, and I have more than just a little trust in his work. Knowing him as I do. I know he is as honest as the day is long.

There have been reports here in the past (with pics) where the grease hole that feeds the inner bearing had a sharp burr left from machining. This burr would nick a new seal as the drum was installed... Instant seal failure.
The fix was to use a dremel and carefully chamfer/smooth the hole so there were no sharp edges.

I have the EZ lubes. But I will not use them. There are many issues with them , but the bottom line is that one cannot see what is really happening inside, without disassembly... Which the manufacturer requires once a year according to their service manual.... That being the case, there is no advantage to them. Many people such as yourself are driving around with blown seals, and just haven't discovered it yet.

[Terryallan]

Ok. Yes it has Zerk fittings. however I don't think they are the culprit. I have been using TTs with ZERKs for more than 16 years with no problems. This axle was replaced 2 years ago because of a bad hub. the service guy told me it was best just to replace the axle, and as I was having them flipped, and they had to come off anyway. We did.

As per instructions I have always pumped grease into the hubs until grease appears around the center. I did the new ones the same way. One side of the new axle filled, and showed as soon as I started pumping. The other side did not. It took a long time to get grease to show. I just thought as it was new, it wasn't filled at the factory. As I look back. It more than likely had a bad seal from the factory. but since I didn't crawl under the Tt to look, and there was no grease on the cement under the TT. It got past me. And since it is now 2 years old. It is on me. I saw it as soon as I did crawl under the TT. Grease all over the back plate. So it will be done before we go again.

Yes the brakes worked great until the last trip we took this fall. They still worked, still stopped the TT. But just didn't feel right. so I'm taking it to M&M to have it done. This is not the same place that raised the TT.

M&M Trucking is owned, and operated by a friend of mine. He started it from scratch about 15 years ago. It is also a on call road service garage. He is also a camping buddy. The shop has a excellent reputation, and I have more than just a little trust in his work. Knowing him as I do. I know he is as honest as the day is long.

[jfkmk]

ScottG wrote:

jfkmk wrote:

ScottG wrote:

Huntindog wrote:

cavie wrote:

jfkmk wrote:
Wow, only three posts to get this off topic! Yes, there is a good chance the brakes have been contaminated eith grease. No matter how you try, youll never get all the grease off the brakes. Definitely have them replaced.

Yep. Lots of folks have a problem with reading comprehension. They read things that are just not there. The post was about question brakes shoes. Not Wheel bearings.

Not off topic, and no problem with reading comprehension.

The grease on the brakes comes from the wheel bearings.

On axles with EZ lube hubs, this is a common occurance.
Hence my question. If the OP has EZlube hubs, and uses this feature, then that is most likely the reason he is now probably facing a big bill.
True, grease seals can just fail... But it happens a lot more often when using the EZlube feature.

Good info IMO and very helpful post. If I were the OP I would want to know how my brakes got grease on them.

If I was the OP and wanted to know how grease was leaking out of the hub (no one actually concluded the brakes had grease on them yet) i would ask the mechanic working on it instead of an opinion based on conjecture.

Even if I tried, I could not care less what a poster like you would or wouldn't do. You want to berate others responses and argue and are of no real use here and are one of those "people" who don't make this forum a better place.
As long as people's responses are within the forum guidelines and rules, they can post anything they want - whether you think they're on-subject or not.

Nowhere in my post did I berate anyone. Grow up.

[Gdetrailer]

JRscooby wrote:
I have no experience with axles that have the zerk. I can see how it would be easy to push grease past a seal, or even push a seal out. After all, a hand grease gun pushing grease is used to tighten the tracks on a loader.
But I have worked on lots of things. Many seals fail because of bad installation. That kind of thing happens shortly after put in service. If it has worked for a while, from a rock crusher to trailer to little bearings on antique motors, if a seal where a shaft spins, or something spins on a shaft, there is a bad bearing. Now did the bad bearing let things wobble ruin the bearing? Or did the escaped lube let the bearing get too dry? No matter, they fail together.
Now when you add the zerk, and grease pumped in the bearings could still be good.

You alluded to using a grease gun to "tighten tracks" as an application of a grease gun.

Most folks do not really understand just how much pressure can be developed by a hand pumped grease gun nor the amount of grease per pump which can vary, a lot.

Per HERE is some examples..

"A basic step that is often overlooked is training the lubrication technician on the proper use of the grease gun. A high-pressure grease gun delivers pressure up to 15,000 psi. Most bearing seals will rarely handle more than 500 psi. A grease gun in the hands of an untrained technician can compromise the bearing’s seal and lead to early failure. The compromised seal invites dirt or other foreign materials as well as overlubrication due to little or no back pressure."

Now, I have seen mentions of hand pump grease guns at a min of 1,700 PSI and typically 2,000 PSI which means that even the lowest pressure guns WILL breach a standard single lip seal with very little pumping..

The EZ lube system is supposed to use a double lip seal because of this issue.. I highly doubt that a double lip seal is going to be able to withstand 2,000 psi or more for very long..

Not to mention folks failing to read the manuals which tell you to TURN the drum while pumping and mechanics which just assume plugging a grease gun without TURNING the drums is fine.. The end result is a blown seal letting the grease expand out into the brake shoes..

I personally have no use for this gimmick (and one of my trailers does have it), PA DMV rules requires a State inspection on trailers with brakes.. That inspection means at least TWO drums (one on each side)MUST be pulled every year and the brakes inspected.

Obviously if you are just pumping a couple of squirts a year into the bearings you are never going to actually LOOK at the brake shoes or drum conditions, are you?

Then add in that grease guns vary in how much grease they pump, some can pump a lot and some not much. So when the axle manufacturer states one or two pumps is good.. You might never fill the empty cavity as shipped new for years which results in dry bearings.. Or with high volume pumps waste more grease than you would if you physically repacked them and risking damaged seals/leaking grease..

I personally like to pull the drums myself if not yearly at least once every two years..

This gives me the chance to check the brakes myself, clean and check the bearings for wear problems and repack the bearings with new grease.

It isn't that I don't trust mechanics, I would rather find and correct a problem BEFORE dragging the trailer to the inspection station. This avoids having a rejected inspection and dragging it home then fixing then dragging it back for the inspection, saves me time and saves the inspection mechanic time.

Grease and a new seal are cheap, replacing a damaged drum, brake backing plate, bearings or axle while on the road is not cheap and not to mention will totally ruin your trip.

[JRscooby]

I have no experience with axles that have the zerk. I can see how it would be easy to push grease past a seal, or even push a seal out. After all, a hand grease gun pushing grease is used to tighten the tracks on a loader.
But I have worked on lots of things. Many seals fail because of bad installation. That kind of thing happens shortly after put in service. If it has worked for a while, from a rock crusher to trailer to little bearings on antique motors, if a seal where a shaft spins, or something spins on a shaft, there is a bad bearing. Now did the bad bearing let things wobble ruin the bearing? Or did the escaped lube let the bearing get too dry? No matter, they fail together.
Now when you add the zerk, and grease pumped in the bearings could still be good.

[ScottG]

jfkmk wrote:

ScottG wrote:

Huntindog wrote:

cavie wrote:

jfkmk wrote:
Wow, only three posts to get this off topic! Yes, there is a good chance the brakes have been contaminated eith grease. No matter how you try, youll never get all the grease off the brakes. Definitely have them replaced.

Yep. Lots of folks have a problem with reading comprehension. They read things that are just not there. The post was about question brakes shoes. Not Wheel bearings.

Not off topic, and no problem with reading comprehension.

The grease on the brakes comes from the wheel bearings.

On axles with EZ lube hubs, this is a common occurance.
Hence my question. If the OP has EZlube hubs, and uses this feature, then that is most likely the reason he is now probably facing a big bill.
True, grease seals can just fail... But it happens a lot more often when using the EZlube feature.

Good info IMO and very helpful post. If I were the OP I would want to know how my brakes got grease on them.

If I was the OP and wanted to know how grease was leaking out of the hub (no one actually concluded the brakes had grease on them yet) i would ask the mechanic working on it instead of an opinion based on conjecture.

Even if I tried, I could not care less what a poster like you would or wouldn't do. You want to berate others responses and argue and are of no real use here and are one of those "people" who don't make this forum a better place.
As long as people's responses are within the forum guidelines and rules, they can post anything they want - whether you think they're on-subject or not.

[deltabravo]

Huntindog wrote:

True, grease seals can just fail... But it happens a lot more often when using the EZlube feature.

YEP, which is why I posted the video, which has some photos in it of the mess I encountered on another trailer.

When I bought the trailer with the failed seals, I asked the owner if he'd ever repacked the bearings. He'd owned the trailer for 4 years.
He said he never repacked them, but always pumped more grease in them periodically. That raised a big warning flag, which went full mast (to the top of the flag pole) when I manually activated the brakes as I was leaving his driveway, and got ZERO braking action until I turn the ITBC up to 9. At max setting, there was braking action, but very little.

When I pulled the hubs apart at home, all 4 of them were caked with grease from seals that had blown probably 2+ years ago.
When pumping grease in using the zerk, it's very easy for the grease to take the path of least resistance since the hole sits mostly behind the inner bearing.... so the grease blows out the rear seal in a heartbeat. I think the second video I posted shows that.

[Huntindog]

dieseltruckdriver wrote:

Huntindog wrote:

cavie wrote:

jfkmk wrote:
Wow, only three posts to get this off topic! Yes, there is a good chance the brakes have been contaminated eith grease. No matter how you try, youll never get all the grease off the brakes. Definitely have them replaced.

Yep. Lots of folks have a problem with reading comprehension. They read things that are just not there. The post was about question brakes shoes. Not Wheel bearings.

Not off topic, and no problem with reading comprehension.

The grease on the brakes comes from the wheel bearings.

On axles with EZ lube hubs, this is a common occurance.
Hence my question. If the OP has EZlube hubs, and uses this feature, then that is most likely the reason he is now probably facing a big bill.
True, grease seals can just fail... But it happens a lot more often when using the EZlube feature.

Agreed, I was going to post nearly exactly what you just said. If anyone had used the EZ Lube feature that can easily push grease past the seal, so it helps in the future.

Here is the not so funny thing... I have read where some dealers will when doing a bearing service, just pump some grease into the zerk, and charge for a repack.... Then when the brakes get grease on them, they charge the customer for a brake and bearing job!
IOW, They make their own work.

[Huntindog]

jfkmk wrote:

ScottG wrote:

Huntindog wrote:

cavie wrote:

jfkmk wrote:
Wow, only three posts to get this off topic! Yes, there is a good chance the brakes have been contaminated eith grease. No matter how you try, youll never get all the grease off the brakes. Definitely have them replaced.

Yep. Lots of folks have a problem with reading comprehension. They read things that are just not there. The post was about question brakes shoes. Not Wheel bearings.

Not off topic, and no problem with reading comprehension.

The grease on the brakes comes from the wheel bearings.

On axles with EZ lube hubs, this is a common occurance.
Hence my question. If the OP has EZlube hubs, and uses this feature, then that is most likely the reason he is now probably facing a big bill.
True, grease seals can just fail... But it happens a lot more often when using the EZlube feature.

Good info IMO and very helpful post. If I were the OP I would want to know how my brakes got grease on them.

If I was the OP and wanted to know how grease was leaking out of the hub (no one actually concluded the brakes had grease on them yet) i would ask the mechanic working on it instead of an opinion based on conjecture.

Now you've gone and done it.
My mechaincal skills are far more advanced than what a typical RV mechanic has.
My vehicles and RVs are serviced by me. Been that way for over 40 years.
The only time my stuff goes to a dealer is when it is under warranty... And they screw that up so often I hate to do it then.

I have built motors.. Race and street. Rebuilt transfer cases and front/rear axles, including setting up the ring & pinion. I can and have done just about anything mechanical. For myself, and few close friends.


My question to the OP (still unanswered) was an attempt to help him in preventing this from happening again.

[dieseltruckdriv]

Huntindog wrote:

cavie wrote:

jfkmk wrote:
Wow, only three posts to get this off topic! Yes, there is a good chance the brakes have been contaminated eith grease. No matter how you try, youll never get all the grease off the brakes. Definitely have them replaced.

Yep. Lots of folks have a problem with reading comprehension. They read things that are just not there. The post was about question brakes shoes. Not Wheel bearings.

Not off topic, and no problem with reading comprehension.

The grease on the brakes comes from the wheel bearings.

On axles with EZ lube hubs, this is a common occurance.
Hence my question. If the OP has EZlube hubs, and uses this feature, then that is most likely the reason he is now probably facing a big bill.
True, grease seals can just fail... But it happens a lot more often when using the EZlube feature.

Agreed, I was going to post nearly exactly what you just said. If anyone had used the EZ Lube feature that can easily push grease past the seal, so it helps in the future.

[jfkmk]

ScottG wrote:

Huntindog wrote:

cavie wrote:

jfkmk wrote:
Wow, only three posts to get this off topic! Yes, there is a good chance the brakes have been contaminated eith grease. No matter how you try, youll never get all the grease off the brakes. Definitely have them replaced.

Yep. Lots of folks have a problem with reading comprehension. They read things that are just not there. The post was about question brakes shoes. Not Wheel bearings.

Not off topic, and no problem with reading comprehension.

The grease on the brakes comes from the wheel bearings.

On axles with EZ lube hubs, this is a common occurance.
Hence my question. If the OP has EZlube hubs, and uses this feature, then that is most likely the reason he is now probably facing a big bill.
True, grease seals can just fail... But it happens a lot more often when using the EZlube feature.

Good info IMO and very helpful post. If I were the OP I would want to know how my brakes got grease on them.

If I was the OP and wanted to know how grease was leaking out of the hub (no one actually concluded the brakes had grease on them yet) i would ask the mechanic working on it instead of an opinion based on conjecture.