Not if you consider the equipment required and labor involved. Do it yourself once and I think you will agree that it is not a "Walk in the park". Dirty, somewhat dangerous & time consuming.
In my "round about" way; I was saying the same thing.
No one said owning a camper was going to be cheap...
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Lou & Freya the wonder dog
2008 GMC Sierra 3000HD Allison Duramax
2019 Flagstaff 8529FL
...No one said owning a camper was going to be cheap...
Boy, Howdy to that, even if you do 99.9% of the maintenance and mods yourself.
The acquisition of tools, equipment over the years is itself an expense.
Hi All, this is a very informational forum, and a great topic. We just purchased a used 2011 Flagstaff 26' 5th wheel (8526RLWS) and the wheel hubs look like they have lots of grease in them. I purchased a grease gun and a tube of lithium wheel bearing grease as per specs, but the grease is red. The original grease is a dark, gray colour, so am wondering if it is OK to mix the 2 greases. Any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks Fred in Alberta.
Hi All, this is a very informational forum, and a great topic. We just purchased a used 2011 Flagstaff 26' 5th wheel (8526RLWS) and the wheel hubs look like they have lots of grease in them. I purchased a grease gun and a tube of lithium wheel bearing grease as per specs, but the grease is red. The original grease is a dark, gray colour, so am wondering if it is OK to mix the 2 greases. Any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks Fred in Alberta.
Most likely the dark gray grease is "old used up" red grease.
BTW, I LOVE your camper!
If you have never before greased your hubs since new, you need to have the hubs removed, the bearings and brakes inspected/replaced (if needed), and new axle seals installed. Have the Zerk fittings cleaned or replaced if they won't take grease easily. Ask the shop (if you use one) to make sure the hubs are filled with grease after the bearings are hand packed. They might not want to since it costs them extra for the grease. Ask them also whose grease they used (my Ex-Dealership's shop used some goofy off shore brand that came in a 55 gallon barrel and not available in the USA.) If you don't like their answer, buy a Lithium Complex #2 with a Drop point higher than 446 degrees MINIMUM.
Connect your HAND PUMPED (no air or battery powered!) grease gun
Pump until the grease that was in the outside bearing becomes the color of the original grease and stop. That pushes the clean grease going in from the rear bearing into the center of the hub and the clean grease from the center of the hub out the outside bearing.
This should only take a few (3 or 4) pumps. Any more than that and you may have a bad axle seal. STOP - this needs to be investigated.
If it is hard to pump; STOP.
Your ZERK is bad, so take it to Autozone and get new ones.
Purists will tell you to jack each wheel and spin while doing this, but if you do not have that ability (easily) it is not worth the extra effort, IMO.
Herk
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Lou & Freya the wonder dog
2008 GMC Sierra 3000HD Allison Duramax
2019 Flagstaff 8529FL
Not if you consider the equipment required and labor involved. Do it yourself once and I think you will agree that it is not a "Walk in the park". Dirty, somewhat dangerous & time consuming.
I place wheel bearing R&R right up there with (1 cord of firewood) lots of tools and equipment required! Youroo!
Informative thread... Thanks to OP, whoever he/she was (Lou, IIRC - it was so many posts ago, lol.)
We have the Ultrulube axles in out new TT. I had read that pumping in grease in twice a year was all you needed and I thought I had a grace period. Does this depend on how many miles you put on? Still don't understand why automotive bearings can go for many years in comparision.
We have alloy wheels and the removable caps seem a bit fragile so I think I will maybe order some spares. Need more spare stuff to stock up on, in addition to a grease gun now...
If and when the time comes, how much do bearings cost? I am thinking I could do a re&re myself. Long time amateur mechanic here (the best ) If I can do something like rebuild the entire front end of a truck, surely replacing the bearings can't be that difficult? Or if you found a cheap source of bearings, maybe it would work to find someone to do the labor only for you? Don't see why I couldn't do a repack myself except for the mess and bother plus it'd probably be at the end of the camping season when it's rainy and cold out.
We have a 2 year warranty. I don't recall seeing anything anywhere saying how often you should re-grease using the Ultrulube zerk fittings. Would failure to periodically re-grease using the Ultrulube feature be a cause for voiding warranty on the bearings if you had a failure? What if you had a bearing repack done by an independent shop at one year. Would that also void the warranty? Same if you did it yourself? I hate the thought of having to pay a dealer their premium plus rates.
Good to know that occasionally the factory does not properly/fully grease up the Ultrulube assembly. I will have to get a grease gun and see what I find. What if you had a bearing repack done by an independent shop at one year?
And I thought buying an RV would be the road to rest and relaxation. Not only do I get to look forward to washing and waxing our TT, I will now have to re-grease periodically. Pffft.
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Gil & Deb & Dougal the Springer Spaniel
Langley, BC
Probably outsourced to China or India and while it comes cheaper quality ALWAYS suffers.
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"Well that didn't go as expected"
2015 Chev 2500HD Highcountry Duramax
Cedar Creek Silverback 33IK
Donald&Casey cairn terrier
Rest in Peace Mary my darling wife.
Scottish by birth Canadian by time.
Still don't understand why automotive bearings can go for many years in comparision.
If and when the time comes, how much do bearings cost?
Well, car bearings are now sealed units and run pretty much constantly. Conversely, RV bearings sit for months and then immediately run at 75 MPH reaching temperatures on the sun side of Mercury.
Not if you consider the equipment required and labor involved. Do it yourself once and I think you will agree that it is not a "Walk in the park". Dirty, somewhat dangerous & time consuming.
Yes its all relative and I have repacked bearings and replaced seal's on a 2001 Wanderer trailer and it was quite a job, but I had the satisfaction of knowing the work was done, guess I'm sceptical of paying for things such as this that you cannot readily see..not sure that it has been accomplished or not.
Yes its all relative and I have repacked bearings and replaced seal's on a 2001 Wanderer trailer and it was quite a job, but I had the satisfaction of knowing the work was done, guess I'm sceptical of paying for things such as this that you cannot readily see..not sure that it has been accomplished or not.
If you don't trust the dealer to do the job, then by all means go to a shop you can trust, but you will have to probably pay about the same price. It is not a simple job for an inexperienced or ill-equipped person. You are jacking up a much heavier vehicle than the average automobile.
Picked up my 2013 Surveyor Select 235RKS last August and with the start of a new season I wanted to make sure the bearings have enough grease so I decided to give this a try. The process went mostly as expected. As expected I cut a couple fingers on the edges of the cap while trying to clean out the used grease. I may devise something better for next time. I used a bottle jack which went well once I was familiar with the extension of the jack. Did both tires then moved to the other side.
Had a WTF moment about half way through when someone decided to resume loading the trailer while I had it up on the bottle jack. Guess I need to be more clear with the work I'm going to be doing.
Down side is I need to remove each tire to access the zerks because of the center cover on my alloy wheels.
Not if you consider the equipment required and labor involved. Do it yourself once and I think you will agree that it is not a "Walk in the park". Dirty, somewhat dangerous & time consuming.
Got that right, doing wheel bearing is one of my least favourite mechanical things to do.
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John & Deb
2011 F250 Lariat FX4 Crew Cab 6.2
2011 Flagstaff V-Lite 30WRLS
...Had a WTF moment about half way through when someone decided to resume loading the trailer while I had it up on the bottle jack. Guess I need to be more clear with the work I'm going to be doing...
If you didn't have jack stands under it in addition to the jack, you are courting a major disaster and injuries regardless of whether someone was walking in it. Always let the trailer down on a jack stand or suitable blocking.
If you didn't have jack stands under it in addition to the jack, you are courting a major disaster and injuries regardless of whether someone was walking in it. Always let the trailer down on a jack stand or suitable blocking.
Good note which I should've included. I did have jack stands under the frame on each side of the tires. Still nerve rattling to have someone walking around while trying to work on it.
I plan to use a 6 ton bottle jack, and then let the frame down on to my 6" X 6" wood blocks. Adding grease isn't a big job, but I want to adjust the brakes. My unit wasn't used very much when I bought it, the shower, fireplace, and floor decals were still attached, but I'm not sure how far it was towed. I had a 24' Kodiak bumper hitch before this 5th wheel, and I could lock up the brakes with power level 6. The same power level doesn't seem to have much effect with the Flagstaff, it will grab but not really slow the unit down. I guess I don't know really what to expect, but the 5th wheel is about 2200 lbs heavier, and probably different brakes.
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Cheers from Alberta Canada
2011 Flagstaff 8526RLWS 5th Wheel
2011 Ford F250 4X4 Crewcab Superduty 6.7L Diesel
B&W 3300 Hitch for Ford 5th Wheel Prep package
) If I can do something like rebuild the entire front end of a truck, surely replacing the bearings can't be that difficult? Or if you found a cheap source of bearings, maybe it would work to find someone to do the labor only for you? Don't see why I couldn't do a repack myself except for the mess and bother plus it'd probably be at the end of the camping season when it's rainy and cold out.
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