I do a wheel bearing job on my boat trailer every winter when I park the boat.
Proper bearing job is pull the hubs, remove the inner seal and pull the bearings out. Wipe all the grease out of the hub with paper towels. Inspect the races. Replace as needed. Wash the bearings in solvent - I use lacquer thinner cause I'm always in a hurry. Inspect the bearings and replace as necessary. Always buy and replace with new double lip inner seal.
Pack the bearing in marine grease. Reassemble - tighten the nut finger tight and back off a flat or even two. You should feel at least a 32nd inch of in and out play on your hub if the bearings are properly tightened, or loosened, depending on how you describe it. NEVER tighten wheel bearing nut to tight and leave it that way. You gotta have some play or when the bearings warm up going down the road, they expand and get tighter, then hotter, then the grease gets hot and flows out of the bearings and they burn up.
In my experience, EZ Lube don't work to get the bearings packed. Mostly EZLube just fills the hub with grease. So you must pack bearings when you install them. As far as I am concerned EZLube are mostly useless.
Bearing buddies are great for keeping positive grease pressure in your hubs so when you back those warm hubs into the water, and they suddenly cool off, everything shrinks down. The bearing buddy pushes grease in instead of a drop of water getting sucked in past the seal. Bearing buddies do not grease bearings. They will only get grease to the outer bearing - the inner bearing is the one that gets water when you dunk em into the lake. You gotta pack bearings if you want them properly lubricated.
Personally, I take a grease gun with me and put 3 squirts into my bearing buddies before I back into the water. When I pack my bearings I never fill the hub up. Any grease not in the bearings is wasted, IMHO. And before I back in, that three squirts, while I watch the bearing buddy spring plunger move outward, makes for sure and certain that I have spring pressure before I dunk my hubs. If you pump your bearing buddies up before you leave home, that grease is going to migrate into the center of the hub relieving that protective pressure before you got to the ramp. Hence I do it at the ramp. PITA, maybe, but you won't see me on the side of the road with a wheel fallen off my boat.
There are a lot of folks who fill their hubs up and most won't take a grease gun with em.. So be it, that works as well. Just takes more work to clean em out each winter. Either way, the key is clean, well greased bearings, good seal, loose fit on the nut.
Rick
