Make sure you don’t just throw new bearings on old races.  That is a good way to have a bearing failure as the bearing and race wear together.  Also, if you are repacking your bearings don’t do more than one wheel at a time as you may get your bearings mixed up and now they might be with the incorrect race.  Again, this could lead to bearing failure.  Not where you want to be.

Here’s a video of how I do bearing and race replacement. Remember this is how I do it, there are other slightly varied techniques out there. Also, never, ever, do a task you are not comfortable with. Paying someone to do this job is much less expensive than a trip to the hospital.

Also, as just a word of caution, this is time consuming. There are many videos that make bearing maintenance look fast and easy. It is not an easy or fast job. Most of those videos have been edited for the sake of time. I just want to let you know so you don’t become frustrated with how long it may take. The first time I did a bearing repack it was brutal. I spent over 30 minutes just removing the rear seal. So just take your time and a deep breath and you will be fine.

Here is the video – please “Like”, and “Subscribe”.

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However, as with everything else regarding RV maintenance, don’t do it yourself if you feel uncomfortable doing so. This involves jacking the trailer up to remove the tires and must be done carefully and safely. Review your owner’s manual for proper blocking and jacking procedures.

Some folks will tell you that it is perfectly OK to jack the trailer up using the axles. That goes against the my axle manufacturers advice (Dexter). They specifically state “NEVER raise the trailer by jacking up via the axles”. Therefore you will want to be safe and place your jack under the frame of the trailer to raise it. Then place some jack stands under the frame as well. Do not use your leveling jacks to raise the trailer; they are not designed for that.

Now, let me briefly talk about the process in a series of steps. These apply to my travel trailer, yours may be slightly different.

Step-1: Loosen but do not remove the lug nuts on the tire.

Step-2: Jack up the trailer via the frame and support it.

Step-3: Remove all the lug nuts, and remove the tire.

Step-4: Remove the dust cap on the wheel drum.

Step-5: Remove the cotter pin or spindle nut retaining band. Then remove the Castle Nut.

Step-6: Gently pull the drum forward to remove the outer bearing and thrust washer, and the wheel drum. In the picture below I have pulled the drum forward and you can see the thrust washer and the bearing coming out of the drum. Pull the drum forward until the washer and bearing fall into your hand – Don’t let them fall on the ground. Note in the picture how black that grease is after only one year.

Step-7: Clean the outer bearing. I use brake cleaner to completely remove all grease. I then set it aside to dry completely which doesn’t take long.

Step-8: Inspect the bearing for pitting or signs of wear.

Step-9: Inspect the race for the above bearing. Look for signs of scoring, pitting, or high temperature scoring.

Step-10: If the bearing and race are in good condition they can be repacked. I use a bearing packer, but this can easily be done by hand as well. There are some excellent videos on packing bearings by hand on you tube. Just put a large glob of grease in the palm of your hand and then continue to push the bearing down into the grease over and over until the grease comes out the entire opposite side of the bearing. The bearing packer does this for me, but I have packed many bearings by hand.

Step-11: Turn Wheel drum over and remove the rear seal. This can be the worst part of the job as it won’t come out easily. I use a seal removal tool. Even with that tool there is some profanity that takes place. Don’t worry about damaging the seal, you must replace it with a new one anyway.

Step-12: Remove and clean the rear bearing.

Step-13: Inspect the bearing for pitting or signs of wear.

Step-14: Now inspect the race for the rear bearing. Look for signs of scoring, pitting, or high temperature scoring.

Step-15: If the bearing and race are in good condition they can be repacked.

Step-16: Inspect the spindle for any wear. Inspect the brakes and inspect the inside of the drum and make sure no grease is in the drum.

Step-17: Pack and reinsert the inner (rear) bearing and install a NEW seal.

Step-18: Lightly lube the spindle.

Step-19: Slide the drum back on the spindle.

Step-20: Re-insert the outer bearing, thrust washer, and spindle nut. Hand tighten the spindle nut.

Step-21: Using a torque wrench, tighten the spindle nut while rotating the drum to 50 foot pounds. Then back off the nut until it is loose and then hand tighten it.

Step-22: Make sure there is not back and forth play in the drum, and insert the cotter pin or spindle nut retaining band.

Step-23: Re-install dust cap.

Step-24: Re-install the tire, and torque the lug nuts to spec.

Now, keep these steps in mind and next go to YouTube. Watch the endless number of videos on the subject. After you watch about a dozen of them you will understand the process pretty well and even be able to identify folks that are not doing it correctly in some of the videos. Trust me, this isn’t rocket science. However, the most important part of this job is making sure you are doing it safely. Having a travel trailer fall on you would be an absolute disaster.

Now, you may be asking your self “why would I need to do this yearly?” Well, these wheels have a lot of weight on them. If your grease is old or the bearing runs dry, you are going to have a major disaster on your hand. That bearing will come apart and ruin your drum, brakes, and your axle. Needless to say, you will be on the side of the road for an extended and expensive vacation. Bearings are cheap…axles plus labor is very expensive.

If you have the Dexter E-Z Lube axles, I want to caution you about what you might see on line. There are many folks that pump grease into the E-Z Lube zerk fitting as a substitute for repacking the bearings. Please don’t do that. It doesn’t allow you to inspect the bearings, your spindle, or your brakes for wear/damage. In addition, I have had conversations with Dexter regarding the E-Z Lube on my trailer and they advised against using it. Some folks will use the easy lube feature after repacking the bearings in order to fill up the cavity in the wheel drum between the inner and outer bearings. I don’t do that, and I think there is a debate about just how useful (or not) that really is.

I highly recommend that you OR a RV tech repack your bearings every year. Don’t tell yourself “Well I don’t put that many miles on anyway, so I should be fine”. Thinking that way will get you all the way to the side of the road. Some dealerships repack bearings at a very good price, but make sure the dealership has a good reputation. Personally, I like to do my own work whenever possible, but there is absolutely no shame in having someone else do this for you.

One last piece of advice: wear gloves and do this on a cool day.

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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.

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!

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My 1966 VW Beetle

In early  November I had a number of issues that took place on my 66 beetle.  In one instance the left front wheel actually came off of the car and passed me on the road.  Very little damage resulted from this mishap.  However, it seemed strange that this would happen since all of my other wheel lugs were torqued to the correct spec.  Unfortunately, I had become “one of those people”

You know who “those people” are.  They are the people you see on the side of the road missing a wheel,  and you wonder if they have a clue about their vehicle.  Anyone who knows me, is aware of how meticulous I am about my vehicles.  None of this made sense to me.

Thanks to AAA (Triple A) I was back on the road in an hour.  At first the AAA tow truck driver wanted to just tow me to a shop, but I told him to just take one lug from each of the remaining tires and put the front tire on with those.  This way I could drive home and deal with the issue there.   The Leader of our VW meeting, Jay, had already told me he would send me some new lug nuts for the front wheel.

Jay had also looked into this issue in the past.  There was some speculation that the lugs could not stay tight due to the powder coated rims.  The theory is that the powder coating is like a plastic, and the lug nut cannot seat against it.  Over time the lugs just come loose.

How could that be, when all the other wheels were fine?  This didn’t  make sense to me as I’ve had these wheels on since 2005 without issue.

Jay’s lug nits arrived within two days.  I replaced the missing lug nuts and torqued them to spec.   Hopefully on my next drive this issue would be just a bad memory.  You might think the story would end here…but it doesn’t.

Fast Forward a month.  Now I am heading to the same VW meeting that I had attended the month prior when the wheel passed me on the highway.   As I drove the beetle it just didn’t feel right; it wasn’t rolling as easy as it had previously.  I had actually noticed this to a lessor degree the month before, which I thought must have been caused by the loose lug nuts.

When I got to the meeting I went around and touched each wheel with my hand to see if I had a potential bearing issue.   When I touched the problem wheel it was extremely hot.  My brake shoes were frozen to the hub.

Thankfully this club has a lot of knowledgeable VW owners and they quickly backed off the brake shoes.  After we pushed on the brake pedal however, the problem returned.   The consensus of the group is that there were two potential problems:

1.   A bad brake line that was not letting fluid flow out of the cylinder
2.   A bad brake cylinder

Once I returned home I decided I would try to trouble shoot the issue.  I got on the phone with Scott, one of my VW buddies and together we replicated the frozen brake issue.  Then Scott told me where the bleeder valve was located and I tried letting fluid out of the cylinder to see if the shoes would release; they did not.  I decided to let the car sit for the rest of the day and see if the brake shoes would retract (to confirm a hose issue vs. a wheel cylinder).  The next morning, the wheel was still frozen.

Next I tore the wheel apart to look at the cylinder.  Surprisingly, a few lug nuts were loose.  This makes me think that when the wheel became hot, it allowed the nuts to loosen.  Scott seemed to think the same thing was a possibility stating “it seems just too coincidental”.  I’m going to do some further testing on this issue once the brakes are fixed.

Next, on to inspecting the brake cylinder; it was frozen.  So, after talking to my old VW Mechanic in Wisconsin, I decided to buy all new bearings, seals and a new cylinder.  Unfortunately I had to buy some tools as well to help with the job.  The good news is that these tools were pretty inexpensive, and will be useful when I work on the travel trailer.

Next, I replaced the wheel races and packed the wheel bearings.  Then I put the inner bearing seal on the hub and placed the wheel back on the spindle; set the bearings and locked the hub in place. 

Now it was time to bleed the brakes.  This became the most frustrating part of the job.  It seemed like we weren’t getting anywhere.  Then while talking to Scott about our dilemma on the phone I noticed that even though I had previously adjusted the brakes, after bleeding them, they were once again out of adjustment.  Scott told me that every time we pump the brake pedal and bleed a brake, we then need to go back and adjust those brake shoes tight again.  Once we knew the correct process,  bleeding the brakes was easy.  A very special thanks to my buddy Scott, who enlightened me on this process.

Once that was done, I took the bug out for a drive – it was perfect.  To be quite honest, I think the brakes are the best they have ever been.  In addition, the car used to pull slightly to the right during breaking, and that is no longer happening. 

As a result of how well this turned out, I took the passenger side front wheel apart and performed the same procedure.  On the passenger side though, I didn’t need to replace the bearings, just clean them and repack with grease; and they needed it badly.

I have learned a lot since I started this job.

1. Removal of the Wheel bearings
2. Removing the races (more difficult than I thought)
3. How to disassemble and inspect the brakes.
4. Inspection of the wheel cylinder an how to remove it.
5. Removal of the adjusting stars ( which adjust the brake shoes) and the cleaning of them.
6. How to pack the wheel bearings with grease.
7. How to adjust the brake shoes.
8. The procedure for bleeding the brakes
9. How to save a bunch of money.
10. It’s great to have knowledgeable and helpful friends, like Jay,  Scott,  AL, and my VW mechanic in Wisconsin Terry.

So, what in the world does all of this have to do with my Grand Design Travel Trailer?Well surprisingly, the brake system is old school, just like the 66 Beetle.   Working on the 66 has taught me that I can easily do my own wheel bearings and any brake work that may be required on my travel trailer.    So, as I mentioned above, sometimes you gain crossover knowledge when you work in a project.  That’s what my 1966 Beetle taught me about my travel trailer.

For more information on my 1966 VW Beetle, click here

For more posts revolving around maintenance click here.

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