Trailer wheel bearings - Rear seal..

[hman]

I serviced the trailer bearings for the first time in their 6 month life last weekend and dragged the trailer off to Bristol and back.


On return to home (some 260 miles later) i notriced that there were tracks of grease running from the bearing out towards the tyre across the rearface of the wheel.

Seems that one of the seals has dissapeared completely and the other is only half there???

Do I need to replace the seal?

Is its purpose to stop stuff coming in of stop grease going out??

[Eggman]

hman said:

Is its purpose to stop stuff coming in of stop grease going out??

A bit if both, and unless you can be bothered continually checking and repacking them it would be best to replace the seals. Before doing that, however, I would take the trailer for another little outing and see if either of the hubs feels warm afterwards. Could be that one or both bearings is knackered and they're heating up and making the grease runny.

[hman]

they both felt warm to touch, but perhaps I've done them up a bit tight, the castellations on the nut mean that to get the pin in they are either too loose or too tight!.


That said, the grease (LM2?) seems to get quite runny just by leaving the tin out in the sun!

Maybe I'm using the wrong grease too, it does say that it can be used on UJ's, wheel bearings etc.

[Eggman]

The grease sounds fine. A tiny bit of heat might be ok, but if they can properly be described as warm I would start to wonder about them. Do the wheels spin nice and freely if you jack them up and give them a twirl? If you can feel any tightness or roughness in them and they make anything but the slightest sound then I would take them to bits again, clean them up and examine them very closely indeed.