Sealed Wheel Bearings?

[mfschu]

Is it possible to replace the wheel bearings with a sealed for life bearing? I don't understand why if they will last for hundreds of thousands of miles on the tow vehicle why they wouldn't last for years on a trailer. It would be nice to eliminate this maintenance item. Thanks!

[Ron in BC]

At the risk of appearing rude my observation is that some folks service their wheel bearings a tad more than is necessary.

It's not a big deal. As long as you have drum brakes, depending on the number of miles, you're going to want to check the linings from time to time anyway.

Ron

[AKCamper]

being a retired mechanic I remember the days of drum brakes and even disc brakes that had packable wheel bearings. The factory recommended service interval for wheel bearing repack was 30,000 miles and most people didn’t do it unless they needed a brake job. Still I wouldn’t go that long on our trailer. I do like the dexter ezlube feature. I think a trailer should go 10,000 miles without a repack unless the bearings seem loose or rough or the brakes seem to have an issue. I always feel the hub temperature and wiggle/ spin the bearings when I adjust the brakes every 1,000 miles

[Doug2000]

I don't know the actual size but the wheel bearings on the trailer are likely and 1" bore and a 1 1/4" bore. The bearings on the axle of my truck are likely double that and flooded with differential oil. It's not really a fair comparison.

If you want a sealed lifetime bearing on your trailer, it would cost substantially more. Dexter makes cheap axles because that's what trailer manufactures want.

In 20 years I have only done my bearings once and that was because we were going 10,000 km.

If I wanted an improvement on any one issue, it wouldn't be the wheel bearings, it would be something made by Dometic.

[CharlesinGA]

Dexter does make a line of axles called Nev-R-Lube that use sealed bearings. However the design is totally different than standard bearings and hubs and would require entirely new axles (as new spindles are needed and they are welded into the axle tubes) and also new drums and hubs.

GOOD QUALITY tapered roller bearings and quality grease and regular maintenance will give you millions of incident free miles, and the rare on the road failure can be cured many times with a new bearing and race. The Nev-R-Lube hubs require a little more expertise in the bearing replacement and the odds of finding replacement parts are nil without a long wait. I'll stick with regular old bearings. I use USA made Timkens and good synthetic grease with Molybdenum in it.

The Nev-R-Lube bearings are also sensitive to side loading and can be damaged by curbing, or even the use of wheels with too much offset.

https://youtu.be/lKJo3rgN1cM

https://youtu.be/EQwMjcvPr7I
Charles

[Patandlinda]

Originally Posted by CharlesinGA

Dexter does make a line of axles called Nev-R-Lube that use sealed bearings. However the design is totally different than standard bearings and hubs and would require entirely new axles (as new spindles are needed and they are welded into the axle tubes) and also new drums and hubs.

GOOD QUALITY tapered roller bearings and quality grease and regular maintenance will give you millions of incident free miles, and the rare on the road failure can be cured many times with a new bearing and race. The Nev-R-Lube hubs require a little more expertise in the bearing replacement and the odds of finding replacement parts are nil without a long wait. I'll stick with regular old bearings. I use USA made Timkens and good synthetic grease with Molybdenum in it.

The Nev-R-Lube bearings are also sensitive to side loading and can be damaged by curbing, or even the use of wheels with too much offset.

https://youtu.be/lKJo3rgN1cM

https://youtu.be/EQwMjcvPr7I
Charles

Excellent information ! So we will also stick with the regular bearings . Thankyou . Pat