I'd inspected and packed the wheel bearings
before the Alaska trip, but with over 11,400 more miles on the trailer I figured I would do it again. A quick visual inspection showed significant pitting on an outer cone. I was surprised that I hadn't detected additional heat buildup in the hub when I checked at stops. As near as I can tell, the wheel bearings were original equipment.
This time, I decided to spend the dollars to install US built Timken bearings.
The bearing packaging even includes holographic labels to combat clones.
The trick was to get the inside races out of the wheel hubs. The wheel hub casting didn't have enough relief to be able to get a drift onto the backside of the cup. After trying other tricks including dry ice, I resorted to the 70 year old arc welder - it gets used at least once each year.
A couple blobs on each race gave something to set the drift against to drive them out.
The new races were driven in, the cones packed, new inner seals installed, and everything went back together neatly. The brakes were adjusted and the
new wheel & tires mounted. We're ready to roll again.
Thks for the reminder that it's time to have our wheel bearings repacked!
ReplyDeleteNice that you are ready to roll again!
Hope you enjoy your upcoming river trips! It's time to get our boats out for some local paddling.
There are a couple other minor projects to do, but it's nice to have the trailer ready to roll again. We don't have anything specific until Quartzsite, but ...
DeleteI'm really looking forward to getting some river drifting time!