BB's, The Boob job

[dellori3]

Some of you will hate me for what I am about to tell you. That's OK and I under stand.
After reading a number of post on wheel bearings problems I feel it is my duty to explain a few thing you are not aware of.
BB's (Bearing Buddies and others like them) seamed like a good idea at the time. Turns out that they are non effective and in general lead to more problems than they are worth. I liken them to a "Chrome Plated Boob Job" , They may look good, but fail to provide any enhanced function. Same thing is true with breast implants "They look good but fail to feed the baby'. And of course there is an added risk for the kid. The fact is You are better off with the original design Dust cap and annual repack.

Many of you know that BB's Leak grease out because of the vent hole, miss use and blown seals. If they leak grease out, then they will leak water in!
Even more serious is the decreased diameter of the retention washer of the outer bearing (allows grease to be forced around and through to the inter bearing). Should the outer bearing fail, The wheel will come OFF!

About this time you are asking "why are they on all trailers?"

It is because you asked for them and because of a sales campaign.

Dellori3

 

[skargo]

Re: BB's, The Boob job

Nice first post spammer.

 

[GilliganGirl]

Re: BB's, The Boob job

Interesting that you'd post this; I've just finished installing new bearings on my trailer and I opted for not installing bearing buddies. My theory is that if you keep the bearings properly greased, that the water will not damage them. I make a habit to make sure that I pop the dust caps and apply grease after every trip home.

My friend has bearing buddies on his trailer, the ones with the clear cap so you can see the grease. On two of them, the grease has gone all milky and they?ve been that way for two years ... that can?t be good ? I sure have made a point to make sure I don?t have to follow him when he?s pulling that thing

 

[TyeeMan]

Re: BB's, The Boob job

I would agree with you to a point. The purpose of the Bearing Buddy is not really not to supply fresh grease to any of the bearings. A Sure Lube axle will do that. Rather the bearing buddy is meant to be a means of supplying a slight positive pressure inside the hub. So you're off to the lake, you drive down the road for a few miles and warm up the hub assy a little and create a slight positive pressure inside the hub, no biggy there. Now you take those warm hubs and dunk them in the cool water while you unload, now the hub cools off and makes a slight vacuum inside the hub. THIS is where the water intrusion comes in.
The best thing anybody could do for their hubs is find a double lip spring reinforced seal. Chicago Rawhide makes one that is awsome!! The boat dealer that I go 40 miles out of the way to get to carries these seals.
I've gotten seals from Napa, and they are single lip, maybe with a spring. PURE CRAP!! Althought that might depend on the particular Napa store.

Another mistake made by alot of people is over greasing the bearing buddy. Over grease it and you compromise the seal - -water intrusion.
All one needs to do is add enough grease to just move the diaphragm maybe an 1/8th of an inch, that's it.

I use high quality double lipped spring reinforced seals, opperate my bearing buddies as stated above, and do hub tear down every two years and have NEVER had a problem.

Oh, high quality synthetic bearing grease helps too. Amsoil marine grease comes to mind. Best stuff in the world.

 

[22E6441]

Re: BB's, The Boob job

I just did my bearings and didn't use bearing buddies...always had them before on the two trailers that I've bought. I just redid my bearings, greased them properly, and stuck the dust caps on.

At the end of the season I will inspect and repack, then I will make my final judgment on BB's. If my bearings are still looking good, I'll never put buddies on again.

 

[HappierWet]

Re: BB's, The Boob job

Decreased retention washer size???? The wheel will come off????? I think someone lost their washer. If anything I over grease, although having read A LOT of these posts, I'm backing off that. A slight positive pressure is good in the hubs, not so much to leak out the seal but enough to eliminate voids or condensation.
SKARGO, You were right!!!

 

[eli_lilly]

Re: BB's, The Boob job

dellori3 I think the same thing as I drive down the road on the weekends, trying to weave my way around the trailer tires littering the highway without hitting the hundreds of discouraged trailer boaters lining the shoulders, fists raised to the sky, cursing what they now know to be the "Devil's Dustcap".

-E

 

[Bob_VT]

Re: BB's, The Boob job

interesting first post and RUN!!!

 

[skargo]

Re: BB's, The Boob job

It appears he offers a competing product, what a novel way to further his agenda, by bashing a known good product Like I said, a 2 bit spammer with dubious marketing skills.

http://www.anglerschat.com/showthread.php?t=4896

"Got water in your wheel bearings? Tired of band aid systems? Well I did something about it. I came up with a seal bypass system. It has a small reservoir and vent line that is compensated with water pressure. As you back your trailer into the water, the compensator adds pressure to the spindle. The combination of static oil pressure and water pressure is added to the spindle proportional to the depth , makes the spindle positive at all times. No water can ever get into the bearnings. Wheel failure due to water intrusion is elimanated. Works on lube oil and our test trailer shows great results. Of course I have a patent pending. You can email if you want serious details. Del"

http://www.anglerschat.com/showthread.php?p=21728#post21728

"There is a fix to the bearning problems. After 30 years a comerical trailer boater in salt water I am the leader in the " Been there done that club" It came to me at 3: 00 am how to fix this problem. O buy the way Bearning buddys are not the answer they create more trouble than there worth. Been thinking about making a little kit to fix the problems. need some feed back as to the intrest. took me 30 min to retrofit my axel, some tools and about $5.00 worth of parts. Let know. Del"

http://www.anglerschat.com/showthread.php?t=4669

"A way to make them go away. Any one interested? Del PS this is a no water intrusion ever."


http://www.anglerschat.com/showthread.php?t=4668

"What if I was to tell you I have hit on a way to elimanate wheel bearning failure> Would that interest any one? I just sold my comereical trailer boat after some 30 years of launching and related bearning failures. A simple kit to convert your axel to trouble free operation.Need some feed back. Del"

Yo Del, might want to look into reinventing spell check too, looks like yours is failing too.

 

[22E6441]

Re: BB's, The Boob job

Nice find, Skargo.

One word: Ban

 

[skargo]

Re: BB's, The Boob job

Here he is playing with pickles.

The funny thing is his idea doesn't look half bad, just a sneaky way of springing it on people.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/17683133@N02/page7/

 

[marlboro180]

Re: BB's, The Boob job

Nice work skargo. Maybe he's got something there but just to bash something else and not be up front about intent??????

 

[j_martin]

Re: BB's, The Boob job

Here's my 02 on bearing buddies.

Good seals are a must for them. BTW, BB sells seal kits that ignore the scored rusty steel steel surface on your axel and put a nice shiny stainless surface, sealed by an o-ring over them. The seal they supply seems to be pretty good quality also.

Once the seals are good, the BB installed and properly lubed, including topping off several times till all the air is out of the hub, what is in place is a spring loaded lightly pressure lubed hub, with a quick glance integrity check. If the disk isn't bottomed, everything's in good shape. When something fails, like a seal, you have indication of that a long time before it goes critical. If you don't use that info and do the maintainance, it isn't BB's fault.

If you put on BBs, grease it up once, put on the bras, and never look, you might as well just use a standard hub cap.

I've been using em for 30 years, and wouldn't do without them.

John

 

[dellori3]

Re: BB's, The Boob job

Run, but you can not hide, Spam HMMmmm I don't think so. Not here to sell you anything or trade insults. If you want to learn what I know about trailer hubs than stick around.
To begin with I am a retired Navy Machinist mate, 35 years commercial fisherman (salt water) using 10,000 lb trailers . In that time I lost four wheels off boat trailers. Also I know countless other fishermen with the same problem.

It is true if you are a "light user" (smaller boats , fresh water) you probably get by with less troubles and maintenance.

The root cause of bearing failure is the pressure difference in wheel hubs that allows water intrusion. The answer is how to compensate for this pressure differences in a cost effective way. Also do it with a maintance free system for boat trailers.

Car maker have a vented differential (a line that runs up to the bed) This maintains the differential pressure near "0 psi". No more problem with wheel seals! So if you made a by pass around the seal on a trailer hub, one could vent the hub correct?
Just think about this part and I will post the rest later.

Dellori3

 

[skargo]

Re: BB's, The Boob job

Still don't see it Del? Maybe an introduction BEFORE bashing a company that makes products MANY of us use successfully would have been prudent?

 

[JB]

Re: BB's, The Boob job

Sounds to me like a rant blaming everything except incorrect usage and maintenance for bearing problems.

Bearing Buddies are misused and abused more than they are correctly used. Five of six have blown out inner seals and grease all over the wheel inner surface from being overcharged. The sixth one may well be undercharged and carry no positive pressure at all.

If you never put your hubs in the water you don't need BBs. If you fully cool the hubs and bearings before putting them in the water you probably don't need BBs.

The benefit that properly installed and charged BBs offer is a positive pressure inside the wheel hub so that sudden cooling by being immersed doesn't suck water into the hub past properly installed seals.

I use them because I usually immerse the hubs when launching and retrieving. I am very careful to only charge them enough to partly compress the spring.

 

[Bob_VT]

Re: BB's, The Boob job

Run, but you can not hide, Spam HMMmmm I don't think so. Not here to sell you anything or trade insults. If you want to learn what I know about trailer hubs than stick around.
To begin with I am a retired Navy Machinist mate, 35 years commercial fisherman (salt water) using 10,000 lb trailers . In that time I lost four wheels off boat trailers. Also I know countless other fishermen with the same problem.

It is true if you are a "light user" (smaller boats , fresh water) you probably get by with less troubles and maintenance.

The root cause of bearing failure is the pressure difference in wheel hubs that allows water intrusion. The answer is how to compensate for this pressure differences in a cost effective way. Also do it with a maintance free system for boat trailers.

Car maker have a vented differential (a line that runs up to the bed) This maintains the differential pressure near "0 psi". No more problem with wheel seals! So if you made a by pass around the seal on a trailer hub, one could vent the hub correct?
Just think about this part and I will post the rest later.

Dellori3

Really too bad that no one ever taught you proper maintenance. Perhaps I can see it happening once to someone but never 4 times.

There is nothing that is maintenance free...... anyone can explain that.

Skargo is right I did some checking on the net, you have been spewing bearing rants all pointing toward a product (a patent pending).

Please read our forum rules and guidelines.

 

[dellori3]

Re: BB's, The Boob job

The 64 dollar question. Are you here to learn or just here to insult experts?
Dellori3

 

[skargo]

Re: BB's, The Boob job

The 64 dollar question. Are you here to learn or just here to insult experts?
Dellori3

You are now claiming to be an expert?!?!?! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA


The better question are you here to be a spammer, or to be a spammer.

Go poop in your hat.

 

[redone4x4]

Re: BB's, The Boob job

The 64 dollar question. Are you here to learn or just here to insult experts?
Dellori3

havent seen anything useful to learn from yet. show us maybe.