Bearing Tutorial

There are tutorials online that I was able to use. I seem to remember Teachndad had a lot of photos for when he did his...maybe he could resurrect?

I took photos, but not enough for a tutorial. It was easier than expected for a non-car guy.

1965fieldandstream.blogspot.com/2016/11/bearings-and-new-tires.html?m=1

Thanks mel and danrhodes both those links were helpful. It almost looks too easy, wondering if the process is the same when your picking a trailer up? I doubt that end cap will come of so easy. I guess it's the little extra tips I'm interested in as well.

Just repacked my bearings after watching many, many YouTube videos. I couldn't find any that included my old Dayton Fayette hubs so I documented in photos. Feel free (please do!) to comment if it looks like I got anything wrong. Also- a couple notes-

1.the brakes are inoperable. Will be trying to get them up and running next spring. If anyone has restored old Dayton Fayette brakes, I would love advice. 2. The grease seals at the back of the assembly, where it faces the brakes, were in backwards, I believe. I bought new replacement seals at a local boat/marine shop. It was funny because I tried AutoZone and o'reilly and both were mostly clueless about finding the right seal. I walked into the marine shop, showed the guy my part and he didn't even hesitate. Yep, I've got that and was back with it in 2 minutes.

3. My old Dayton Fayette rims had left hand (reverse thread) bolts on the street side. So if they aren't budging, try righty - loosey.

So, here we go, in real simplistic terms, because that's what i needed so I figure someone else will be helped by it, too.

1. Remove any lug nut covers and hub caps

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2. Loosen the lug nuts, or bolts in my case, while the tire is still on the ground. It's very hard to loosen them while your tire is spinning. But don't unscrew all the way, so your tire will stay on while you jack it up. Then jack up- I have a little old bottle jack. If the silver tube is sticking out of the top, grab the little tab with a pliers and loosen, push down the jack tube and then tighten. Place the jack on a riser if needed (I used a super stable piece of solid wood we use as our tongue jack stand). Insert the metal pipe and jack her up slowly, so that the tire spins. I placed a jack stand under the bumper to insure that the bottle jack, if accidentally kicked or toppled, wasn't the only thing holding the camper up. Then finish removing the tire.

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Pry off the grease cap. Mine was caked with old grime, so I was pretty sure it wasn't going to come off, but slowly tapping inside the ring with my small pry bar and hammer started popping it out. It took some patience, but eventually it popped off, showing off all of it's goopy glory. Wipe out the interior with a rag and drop it soak in some cleaner/degreaser.

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Wipe the old goopy grease off the exposed castle nut and you will see the cotter pin, with one end bent to hold it in place. Straighten out the bent cotter pin ends with a needle nose pliers and slowly work the pin out the spindle with the needle nose or a heavy pliers. Be careful. I felt like mine was going to break as I wiggled it out and was real worried about how the heck I would get it out of there. Then just screw off the castle nut, it should be hand tight, so you may not even need a large wrench for it.

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Next grab the hub and gently wiggle toward you. The D washer and small bearing will pull toward you, push the hub back into place the washer will likely stay exposed. It takes a little fiddling with the small pry bar to get the bearings and d washer to separate. Pull the washer and bearing off the spindle and drop them into your degreaser after a good wipe down. Then pull the whole hub off and set on a clean surface.

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Flip the hub over. You should be able to get a small pry bar under the seal (mine were in backwards with the U shaped side of the seal and rubber flange facing the brakes/axle, according to every video I watched and person I talked to, including the very knowledgeable trailer/boat guy). Work your way around the seal to push it up out of the hub. If they look to be in decent shape, be careful so as not to bend them. Mine were not good, so I didn't really care about being gentle. With them on backwards, however, I had nothing to grab with the pry bar. So (after much YouTubing) I figured out the PVC pipe method and got real luck that we had a perfect little chunk lying around in the garage. It needs to fit almost perfect into the hole in the hub from the front side so that you can catch the edge of the large bearing ring and push it, and the seal, out of the hub. You want to use PVC, not metal, so as not to damage the bearing ring or shred wood inside your hub. One or two good bonks with a wood block and rubber mallet and it was out.

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Wipe everything down really well with disposable shop towels and clean, clean, clean. Get the spindle really clean. Inspect the bearings and other parts for wear or discoloration, inspect the spindle and races (the smooth shells that are still in the hubs) for pitting and discoloration. Get as much of the old grease out of the bearings as possible by rolling degreaser in the bearings and rubbing with clean shop rags. Now the fun part. Packing the bearings. I hand packed them, but will be buying one of those little packing gadgets from Amazon for the next time I pack them because it's tedious work. I would recommend watching a youtube video to see how this is done, since a photo doesn't really make for a good explanation. You basically put a giant gob of grease on your hand and "push" scrape the grease into the bearings by pushing the seam along the outer edge of the bearing ring where you can see the bearing floating, against the grease pile and packing grease in there. You will know you have enough in there when little flame shaped blobs of grease start squeezing out of th top of the bearing ring. You can just see them in the final picture here.

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Do this to the large and small bearing. Then grease the races, (the inside of the now clean hub) the inside of the seal and the spindle. Drop the Large bearing into the back side of the hub with the small end toward the inside of the hub. Place the seal with the backside of the U shape out, which will be the part that seals against the last step in the spindle, and the little rubber flange against the bearings. Use a block of wood and/or a rubber mallet to tap the seal into the hub. You want the seal to be flush with the outside of the ring on the hub. Run your hand over it under it feels level and flush.

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Flip the hub back over, on a clean surface. Please ignore the dirty grub back there, I learned the hard way that you need your surface, which now likely has some grease on it, to be real clean. You don't want grit getting into your bearings or on your spindle. Drop your fully packed small bearing into the hole with the small side facing down. Then place the hub back on your greased spindle.

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Now, take your D washer, replace it on the spindle with the grooved side toward the bearings and screw on the castle nut. You want the castle nut to be hand tightened. You don't want to crank down on your bearings. Give your tire a spin, it should spin smoothly for a couple rotations until it slows. No grinding or quick stopping. I had to reseat both of my hubs twice before I got to the point where they didn't rub or scrape.

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Now, place your (I bought new) cotter pin into the hole. If you have to turn the nut to find the hole, back it off instead of tightening to prevent over tightening. Bend both ends. People seem to do this different ways. both ends up over the castle nut, both ends splayed around the nut, or combos. I chose to combo it. You bend it as best as you can, and then use your rubber mallet to get it bent in as close to the nut as possible. Lastly - pack some grease into your dust cap to help keep dust and water out of the bearings and reseat your dust cap by gently tapping it back into place with your rubber mallet. Replace the tire, and hand tighten the nuts/bolts. Give it spin to be sure everything is still spinning smoothly. Make sure everything is out of the way and remove the jack stand. And drop your bottle jack by turning the little tab with a pliers. It will come down fast, have everything out of the way, including your body parts! Tighten up your lug nuts or bolts to the correct tightness. Finito!

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A couple of tips.
If the castle/spindle nut will pass through the outer bearings race, after removing the cone, screw the nut back on a few turns then use the brake drum and hub like a slide hammer, pulling them towards You and the bearing and seal will pop right out of their bores in the hub.
Another tip.
After the hub, bearing and washer and nut is installed, crank down on the nut so it is pretty tight and rotate the hub several turns in both directions, that will squeeze the excess grease out of the bearings.
then back the nut waay off and tighten it down just finger tight.
if the nut is difficult to turn because of interference on the threads, then use a wrench or pliers to screw it back down and also keep checking for a wiggle kind of a movement of the drum/hub in relation to the spindle shaft. when the wiggle has just been removed then install the cotter key. If the castle nut needs to be turned to align the hole in the spindle then always back off the nut, never go tighter.
 A slight little bit of slack is okay, too tight is not okay and may cause the bearings to burn themselves up.
Before towing any of My trailers, I push real hard on the top of the tire then pull it towards Me, if there is any excess slack in the bearings You will be able to see, hear and feel as the tire is pushed away and pulled towards You.

500 miles later, the hubs are cool as cucumbers. Guess the POs seals really were in backward! One question I have for everyone... do you usually repack your bearings every year? Also, my bearings looked good to my untrained eye, but how do you know if they are bad or going to cause a problem?