Bearing buddies leaking grease ??

[Tafflad]

Re: Bearing buddies leaking grease ??

Bearing buddies are only intended to provide a slight positive pressure when you unload after the long hot trip. This is to eliminate sucking water in the hubs from the quick cooling effect of backing in to the water.

You should still pull and re-pack annually or bi annually at least.

Think about it...If you do not leak grease from the rear seal (as it is supposed to be) how would the new grease get back there? If you are leaking grease form the rear seal you are going to allow water in to the bearings from the back.

Not really correct ... as long as there is a 'pool' of grease in the bearing buddy, it will keep positive pressure ... and even though some is leaking out the back, no water is getting in (whole purpose of the design)
Now if you let the 'pool' empty ... then water will get in if grease leaks.

I like the new ones with positive visual guide of grease level, via the blue indicator ring.

 

[JarJarBlinks]

Re: Bearing buddies leaking grease ??

BUT...if you pump them full and hit the road the heat build up and resulting expansion leaves nothing to blow but the rear seal.

CR

If grease leaks out the rear seal due to overfilling, wounld the seal "reseal" once the grease leaks out. They are rubber and I would imagine that they could let some grease out due to pressure and then reseal themselves?

 

[JarJarBlinks]

Re: Bearing buddies leaking grease ??

If grease leaks out the rear seal due to overfilling, wounld the seal "reseal" once the grease leaks out. They are rubber and I would imagine that they could let some grease out due to pressure and then reseal themselves?

Anybody know?

What I did was I repacked the bearings on a trailer circa 1979 I own for the first time since I purchased. I'm mechanically inclined yet it was the first time I ever did bearings on a trailer. I had to do it because the seal on one side was leaking.

The bearings, recesses, and sealing surfaces looked like new so I only put new seals in (Purchased from Autozone, single lip I believe) and cleaned/regreased everything. I made sure to keep the axle nut "back the nut off from the point where the play disappears 1/8 to 1/6 of a turn". Then I put my (real, older style w/o weep hole) Bearing Buddies back on and filled er' with grease.

What I did wrong is I thought that I had to get all of the air out of the cavity and have it completely filled with grease. I would pump grease until the bearing buddy moved out, then press it back in to get the air out of the cavity. Both sides of the axle took a combined 1.5 tubes of grease.

Now after the first trip one wheel had slung grease on it and the seal was weeping grease. I guess that the air space needs to be there to allow the grease to expand.


Do I have to spend the time, money, and general PITA to re-repack the wheel bearings and replace the seals again? Or will they seal on their own once the excess grease comes out due to pressure?

And my statement above about the air space in the cavity, this is accurate?

 

[Tafflad]

Re: Bearing buddies leaking grease ??

You shouldn't be able to blow a grease seal with the bearing buddy. The spring tension isn't that high. However, I've seen many scarred sealing surfaces, and also a few that were quite a bit undersized, and not able to hold pressure.

Bearing buddy markets seal kits that have a stainless steel seal surface that fits over the original, and is sealed to the hub by an o-ring between the new seal ring and the inside bearing. A high quality neoprene seal completes the application. It's great.


>>>
John

Are these kits easy enough to fit ?, assume it's this we are talking about:
http://www.bearingbuddy.com/spindle_seal.html


As per seperate post my Beraing Buddies leak grease, replcing seal has not fixed this, maybe stub axle is slightly undersize.

 

[j_martin]

Re: Bearing buddies leaking grease ??

BUT...if you pump them full and hit the road the heat build up and resulting expansion leaves nothing to blow but the rear seal.

CR

The spring compresses on the bearing buddy until the piston passes the relief port, then grease splatters all over the outside face of your wheel, reminding you to not do that again.

If it's going out the back, the seal is bad.

Are these kits easy enough to fit ?, assume it's this we are talking about:
http://www.bearingbuddy.com/spindle_seal.html


As per seperate post my Beraing Buddies leak grease, replcing seal has not fixed this, maybe stub axle is slightly undersize.

I've seen trailer seal surfaces .030 or .040 undersized. The spindle seal kits are sized for the bearing/wheel combination. They work very well.

 

[Tafflad]

Re: Bearing buddies leaking grease ??

Are these kits easy enough to fit ?, assume it's this we are talking about:
http://www.bearingbuddy.com/spindle_seal.html


As per separate post my Bearing Buddies leak grease, replacing seal has not fixed this, maybe stub axle is slightly undersize.

Just as an update ... I just fitted these kits as my BB were allways leaking out of rear seal ...

They are easy to fit .... just remember if you have the spindle axles as fitted to my Karavan trailer .. you must remove the grease nipple (zerk ?) fitted at end of spindle ... for 2 important reasons.

This grease point is a nice idea, it fills from the rear and helps avoid air pockets. However the graese exit hole is 'under' the stainless steel seal, and all you pump in, gets pushed out of the back (yep - I found out the messy way)

Secondly you cannot fit the BB (at least my 1980A) to the hub when the grease nipple is there ... it fouls the BB mechanism.

Just pull the existing grease nipple off with a pliers.

So all washed out, repacked, new spindle kit, BB fitted ... ready for the season.

 

[saumon]

Re: Bearing buddies leaking grease ??

Just as an update ... I just fitted these kits as my BB were allways leaking out of rear seal ...

They are easy to fit .... just remember if you have the spindle axles as fitted to my Karavan trailer .. you must remove the grease nipple (zerk ?) fitted at end of spindle ... for 2 important reasons.

This grease point is a nice idea, it fills from the rear and helps avoid air pockets. However the graese exit hole is 'under' the stainless steel seal, and all you pump in, gets pushed out of the back (yep - I found out the messy way)

Secondly you cannot fit the BB (at least my 1980A) to the hub when the grease nipple is there ... it fouls the BB mechanism.

Just pull the existing grease nipple off with a pliers.

So all washed out, repacked, new spindle kit, BB fitted ... ready for the season.

Can't believe it!

You had the best design ever (posi-lube or ez-lube), where the grease come from behind and is pushed toward the front, and you get rid of it to install BB!

I still don't know why this setup (ez-lube or posi-lube spindle) isn't standard on all marine trailers.

 

[Tafflad]

Re: Bearing buddies leaking grease ??

I replaced it for a very good reason ... it was no good !
The grease from the rear idea is good .. but the problem is that the front cup/cover is thin lightly plate steel, with only a rubber press in plug keeping salt water out.
In simple terms .. it didn't ... the plate turned to rust after only a couple of immersions .. and the rubber plug was simply not a good enough seal.

I moved to BB to keep a positive pressure on the grease in the bearings ... this slight positive pressure keeps water out.


If the hub manufacturers had a better quality & design cup/cover ... then maybe I would not have moved to BB.
Although the positive pressure is a good point.

 

[Tafflad]

Re: Bearing buddies leaking grease ??

You shouldn't be able to blow a grease seal with the bearing buddy. The spring tension isn't that high. However, I've seen many scarred sealing surfaces, and also a few that were quite a bit undersized, and not able to hold pressure.

Bearing buddy markets seal kits that have a stainless steel seal surface that fits over the original, and is sealed to the hub by an o-ring between the new seal ring and the inside bearing. A high quality neoprene seal completes the application. It's great.

When you first install a bearing buddy, there will be some air in the hub. It'll burp out as you roll, so you might have to add a squirt of grease both at the loanding, and at home for a few trips. Eventually it'll fill up and you can leave the grease gun home.


hope it helps
John

I had leaking out of rear grease seal.
So I bought the kit ... stainless sleeve, o-ring & new sized grease seals .... still leaks.

I guess I will just have to live with it, it's about one full squirt of grease each trip.

 

[mike343]

Re: Bearing buddies leaking grease ??

Lots of advice above, mostly OK. But the real procedure is to put enough grease into the hubs until you can barely rock the blue plastic cylinders. If you can, that means that there is enough grease to overcome the spring force--that's all you want. Also, check (rock) before launching and retrieving and fill if necessary--38 years of towing with BB's and never a problem other than throwing BB's off due to badly balanced trailer tires. Balance your tires.

 

[reelfishin]

Re: Bearing buddies leaking grease ??

It doesn't matter what type of seal you have, if you over pump the grease into the bearing buddy, something is going to give, it's a matter of hydraulic pressure. I've seen some BB that do not have the relief hole, on those, you will either push the BB off the hub, or blow the rear seal.
When the rear seal blows grease by, it can be either just a matter of grease bypassing the seal slightly or a matter of the lip of the seal flipping outward in which case the seal will no longer seal even once the grease pressure subsides.

The BB brand seals are the best deal going, plus they tend to fix rusted or pitting sealing surfaces. Nothing if fool proof if too much pressure is applied.

I run standard bearing buddies, keep my bearings well greased and adjusted, and only put the minimum pressure on the spring when greasing the BB. I've never had any issues.