End of Season Trailer Check

[Ribs77]

Hey all,

About to wrap up the first season and tow my boat to a barn for a long winter's nap in the country. It's a 165-mile trip one way.

I had a wet slip this year, so probably launched the boat a total of 4 times in fresh water. Other than that, the trailer has just been parked in a driveway. It's a 2021 Shoreland'r and it seems to have Bearing Buddies installed.

I'm reading a lot about packing bearings with grease, etc. I was planning on jacking up the trailer and inspecting the wheels and bearings to see if there was any excessive play or leaks, visible grease, etc.

Assuming all is fine, do I need to consider adding more grease? I've read a lot of stuff that talks about adding grease all the time, but other info seems to indicate that it's easy to add too much grease and cause other problems.

Thanks!

 

[dgfreeze]

Bearing Buddies have a spring loaded mechanism, sort of like a piston, that keeps grease inside the hub and under a slight amount of pressure. I would recommend giving it just enough grease to where you see the spring start compressing. When this happens, the grease zerk will move slightly outward, toward you. Here is where you need to be careful. If you keep going, you will compress the spring, and once it bottoms out, you will begin to over pressurize the hub. This will lead to grease leaking out of the inside and or outside part of the hub, and potentially even pop out the inner seal. Watch this video, a picture says a thousand words.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

From bearing buddy’s website-do not use a hammer directly on the bearing buddy! You will damage it, use a piece of wood on top of the bearing buddy and hit the wood with a hammer. A dead blow hammer will also work in place of a block of wood.

INSTALLATION | BearingBuddy

www.bearingbuddy.com

How it works; contrary to what that video states a bearing buddy WILL NOT over pressure and cause a failure of a good seal as it has a built in pressure release. How Genuine BB® Works | BearingBuddy This is an old misconception that bearing buddies would cause a seal failure. Now if your seal was old and worn out it would not be able to handle the 3 psi of grease pressure that the bearing buddy exerts, and would be allowing water to get into the rear / inner bearing when you dunked your trailer.

If you have not ever added grease to your bearing buddy it will more than likely need grease. You will need to keep adding grease as the air escapes from inside the hub, add enough to where the piston will rock, as the air escapes the piston will drop into the bore under spring pressure and bottom out and you will not be able to rock it. Repeat this procedure until the piston stops bottoming out when the bearings are cold,this guarantees there will already be positive grease pressure inside the hub so water can’t get in. The spring allows the piston to move out as the grease expands when it gets hot, if you add too much grease the excess will accumulate in the area above the piston and you wipe it out.

The video also talks about a “weep hole”, this was not a weep hole, it was the old style pressure relief. Once the piston passed this pressure relief hole excess grease could flow to the outside and it made a huge mess. This was the non marine style and I have a set on my old travel trailer.

How water is sucked into your wheel bearings


So, add some grease to your bb if needed and take the grease gun with you on your trip, add grease as necessary along the way to top them up.

The bb piston can let grease pass by over time, check the piston COLD by pushing on one side of the piston and it should rock a little bit, if it rocks you’re good, if it doesn’t add a pump or two until the piston will rock. If you use this method when hot the piston will rock more as the grease has expanded and pushed the piston out allowing it more room to rock.

Genuine Bearing Buddy

The original and still the best! Millions of bearings owe their lives to it. With Genuine Bearing Buddy your trailer, hubs and axles will always be protected.

www.bearingbuddy.com