EZ Lube Axles

[Herk7769]

Originally Posted by TheSasks

I pump ours out till I see clean grease as well. I do this very slllllooooly as well.

Times a Zillion on the "very slowly"

[jriddering]

So I don't have to take hub apart on my new camper? All I have to do is grease it CAREFULLY? If so, that is so good.

[Herk7769]

Originally Posted by jriddering

So I don't have to take hub apart on my new camper? All I have to do is grease it CAREFULLY? If so, that is so good.

Well, yes and no....

The EZ lube hubs allow you to flush out contaminated grease from the bearings every time you take a trip. Ideally, using the Zerk's to accomplish that should extend the life of your bearings and allow them to run much cooler.

However, The manufacturer STILL recommends a bearing repack every year. This sort of negates the benefit of the EZ lube hubs IMO.

In PA, I need to pull the hubs to inspect the brakes every year, so a repack and inspection at the same time makes sense and gets me new inner seals at the same time.

[K_and_I]

I know what the AL-KO literature says, but I just learned the hard way. I normally repack the wheel bearings yearly myself. We got a new camper last year, and I wanted to make sure the bearings had plenty of grease. I jacked up each side so I could rotate the wheels as I hand pumped grease into each EX Lube. I followed their instructions to pump until I saw old grease come out. This spring, due to medical issues, I took the less than one year old camper back to the dealer to have the wheel bearings repacked. He found one wheel had so much grease in the brakes that it was no longer working. The other three wheels had so much grease in them that the seals were beginning to fail. He said he was at a training class a few years ago and was told to only put 2 at most pumps in each EZ Lube, or there was danger of grease going past the seals. I will not do more that that now.

[caper]

I had the same problem but all 4 of my seals failed. Did not know till going down the hills of Northern Ont. Breaks were working but felt soft. Took to a RV repair shop and the tech did not know how the breaks were working at all. Had to replace all 4 break units. Then only parts that they could save were the drums. Will not use the EZ Lube again put have bearing packed the old way.

[1l243]

I had this same discussion with my Brother In Law who was told by a technician to not put more than two pumps of a hand grease gun in each axle. I put 35 in mine and still did not see any grease come back out. Technician said I probably blew out my seals. So I took off each wheel and looked nope, grease seals were fine. So I added more grease it took another 15 pumps a total of 50 before I saw grease start to come back. Each axle took the same amount. My traile is fairly new and had never been greased before. I pulled the wheels again still no grease past the seals. I spun the wheels as I was adding the grease.

Here is a picture I took to test how much gease we are talking about. Two pumps is about what you would put on your tooth brush. 35 pumps would be about the size of a egg.

[TURBS]

Nice illustration!

[Herk7769]

I have to add something here.
Three words. "Conflict of Interest"
It is in the dealer's best interest to blame you for stuff like this.

They will take no responsibility for rear lip seal scoring by dragging the seal across the sharp threads of the spindle when they pull the hubs for the annual inspection.

Most shops will not replace the rear seal unless it is obviously bad even though the "standard inspection" calls for pulling the hubs and older dry seals may not reseat.

They hate the EZ lube hubs because they are messy. Pulling the hub for brake inspection means that they not only need to clean everything; they need to refill the hub when they are done.

Just Sayin'

[crocus]

This is the old arguement about how much grease to put in wheel bearings.
The "experts" always say that you only have to pack the bearings, leaving the hub cavity dry. This might work, as long as you don't put many miles on, and repack them every 6 months or so.
I have always hand packed the hubs as full as I can get them, similar to pumping 50 strokes into the Easy-Lubes, and I have never, EVER, had a wheel bearing failure.
So on my Easy-Lube Al-KOs, even before I left the dealer, I pumped grease into the hubs until it started to push out, and it took a lot of grease! It was a warm day, and I took my time, so I was not worried about pushing a seal out.
And unless you put a whack of miles on your camper, the grease will last for years with only the odd squirt here and there. It doesn't have to be changed every year. Heck, the old style car front wheel bearings would last for ten years without being touched, and that's because most people didn't even know they existed!

[TURBS]

SLR = STATIC LOADED RADIUS !
see page 28-30

http://www.eaton.com/ecm/groups/publ..._axag-0300.pdf

[K_and_I]

I'm not looking for a battle. I'm talking about a less-than-one-year-old camper that had not had the wheels off before. I hand picked this dealer because I had heard so much good about him. He didn't have the camper I wanted, so I found it somewhere else, and asked him to get it for me. I thought I should be able to follow the EZ Lube instructions and be safe, but he showed me otherwise. He filled the spindle with grease before he put the wheels back on, so I intend to only give it 2 pumps at the most when I need grease. I only posted as a warning to others that sometimes the EZ Lube doesn't keep grease where it should be when you pump until it comes out the front.