Wheel bearing maintenance is an essential task that needs to be done yearly. It’s not very difficult and will probably take about an hour a wheel. That being said, you need to be really careful because it involves jacking up your camper to do the procedure; and you don’t want to have that camper come crashing down on you!

If you don’t feel handy enough to complete this task, then have it done somewhere because the last thing you want during your vacation is to be stranded in the side of the road.

Many times neglecting the wheel bearings will result in a failure that could ruin your axle. There are plenty of pictures and stories about this online.

So this is more of a cautionary post versus a step-by-step procedure although let’s briefly talk about what you’ll need to do the job.

Tools and Waste Basket are ready

You will need the following (keep in mind your axle/bearings may be different than mine so may require different tools or procedures):

Paper Towels

Latex Gloves

Needle Nose Pliers

Castle Nut Socket (not required but a good way to preload the bearings to spec)

Torque Wrench

Seal puller

New Bearing Seals

High Temp Bearing Grease

A Grease Gun and bearing packer (Or Bulk grease if you want to pack your bearings by hand)

Floor Jack

Jack Stands

Wheel Chocks

Tire Iron for removing the lugs on the wheels.

You tube has plenty of videos on how to do this, there is probably a video with your exact configuration available.

I’ve been down this road twice before with my 1966 VW Beetle and my Enclosed Cargo Trailer. Click here to read that blog post. It’s a messy job and depending on how easy, or how hard it is, to pop your old seals out, it may result in much profanity. Removing the seals is definitely the hardest part of this job. At least it was on 2 of my 4 wheels.

So here is a broad overview of the process:

Raise your stabilizers and chock your wheels on the side opposite of where your working.

Loosen the lug nuts on the wheel your going to work on first. I would caution you not to get two wheels going at once because bearings and races need to stay as a set; you don’t want to mix and match bearings and races by accident.

Jack the trailer up and brace with jack stands, then remove the wheel.

Remove the grease cap.

Pull out the cotter pin or retaining ring (which ever you have) that secures the outer bearing on the spindle.

Loosen and remove the Castle Nut that holds the brake drum on the spindle.

Pull the drum forward (towards yourself) and off while making sure not to let the outer bearing fall out of the axle. You can move the drum towards you about an inch or two and push it back again in order to push that bearing forward on the spindle so you can remove it, along with the outer washer.

Remove the Brake Drum.

Next you will need to remove the Inner Bearing Seal. Hopefully you can go slowly around the seal with your removal tool and work it out. Do not damage the inner bearing in your frustration. It will eventually come out but it can get ugly.

Clean off your axles spindle of old grease.

Clean your bearings (I use brake cleaner and let them dry out while I clean the inside of the drums hub and bearing races.

Inspect the cleaned bearings and races for burrs, scoring, or heat damage. If you find any of that going on the job gets longer because you’ll need to buy and install new bearings and races. For the sake of this post we’ll assume everything looks good.

Using your hand or a packing tool, grease your bearings. Again there are many videos on how to do this on YouTube.

Place the greased inner bearing back in the drum and put the new seal into the hub tapping it with a small block of wood until it is flush, like the old one was before you removed the seal.

Put some fresh grease on your spindle.

Slide the hub back on the spindle holding the outer bearing inside the hub as you slide it on.

Place the washer over the outer bearing.

Install the castle nut and while spinning the brake drum use your castle nut socket on your torque wrench and tighten to 50 ft pounds. Then back the castle nut off until it can be moved by hand and then hand tighten it.

Replace your cotter pin or castle nut retaining clip.

Replace the grease seal.

Put the tire back on and tighten the lug nuts.

Lower the trailer and tighten the lug nuts to spec.

So as you can see, bearing maintenance is a fair amount of work. You might even enjoy it depending on what your definition of fun happens to be. I be like doing this kind of work but I’m a glutton for punishment. I am always careful to do jobs that I’m certain I can complete. It’s not a good idea to do any maintenance that you think might not be in your wheelhouse.

If a dealership does this for you you can expect to pay north of $250.00 dollars. The cost if you do it yourself will probably be around $50.00 so that’s quite a savings and of course you’ll bond with your trailer.

There’s other things you’ll want to look at when the hub is off, like your brake pads, and your brake magnet. There is plenty of info online on how to do that.

Please perform your bearing maintenance yearly for your safety and everyone else who travels the same roads! Stay safe!