Dust Cap Woes

[silverbul]

Alls I know is what I see in the posted pictures. Looks to me like you have a bunch of old rusted crap.

Replace the hubs, PROPERLY grease them and put on new hubs that ARE OF THE PROPER DIAMETER.

I have owned a dozen or so trailers over the past 55 years and never once had a cap fly off.

LOL

 

[silverbul]

LOL

You just need to buy a new trailer, lol

 

[JimS123]

You just need to buy a new trailer, lol

Not necessarily. The 2nd longest trailer I owned was a basket case when I bought it for 50 bucks. New tires and wheels, hubs, wiring, wire bushing and coating with rust reformer and Rustoleum primer and topcoat, and 30 years later it still looked like new.

Proper maintenance.......

 

[l008com]

The craziness continues....

First off, the grease that squeezed out was just a little residue that got on the inside of the hub when I topped it off. There is plenty of space inside the cap.

Also I'm not doing the same thing over and over. I keep changing it up but still get the same results.

2 days after trying to firm up the cap with liquid nails, I went for a boat ride Friday night. I went to the closer boat ramp than my last bunch of rides. The drive was about a 15 mile round trip instead of the typical 21 mile round trip. When I got home, I went to check out my caps and they were both still there! But I took a closer look at the one I had glued in place and.....



It might be hard to tell from the picture but the cap was almost completely backed out! It's like the cap auto-ejects after exactly 20 miles of towing! I don't understand how this can be. I had JUST parked and felt all around the hub, everything was cool to the touch. When the cap is in there, it's really tight, you can't get any movement with your hand. And thats before the liquid nails cured which should make it even tighter.

Regarding the hub being rusty, I dunno it's not that rusty. It's not like flaking off or anything. I've also never had caps fall off on any trailer i've owned, until this started happening on this specific boat trailer and now it won't stop.

It looks like it's about $120 for a pair of new hubs, which isn't terrible. Kind of annoying to pay that much because a $2 cap keeps falling off but I guess that's the only thing I have left to try, besides tack-welding the cap in place.

 

[04fxdwgi25]

Too bad you don't have a video of your complete procedure for repacking wheel bearings.

Been doing automotive, truck and trailer wheel bearings for +- 60 years and never had one just "pop off" after 20 miles of use, or multiple times.

 

[l008com]

Too bad you don't have a video of your complete procedure for repacking wheel bearings.

Been doing automotive, truck and trailer wheel bearings for +- 60 years and never had one just "pop off" after 20 miles of use, or multiple times.

We've had this trailer for 30+ years and only recently did this start happening. Recently meaning last few years but also I barely use the boat these days so it's been maybe the last dozen or so trips.

If the issue was that I somehow packed the grease in wrong, and the hub was overheating, surely enough heat to pop the cap off would be more than enough heat to make the hub feel warm if not hot to the touch?

You know, there's a way to test this. I could hammer the cap back on, jack up the trailer and position my go kart so its tire was touching the trailer tire. Fire it up and rev it like crazy and see if eventually the cap pops out. And if so, does anything get hot.

I will say the roads in MA are total garbage. Very rough, disintegrating asphalt everywhere, potholes, construction etc etc. But still that doesn't seem like enough to cause ejecting caps every 20 miles on the dot.

 

[04fxdwgi25]

Ahhhh.... The MA roads.

Been there, done that when living on the South Shore. But they shouldn't grenade the dust caps.

 

[richw46]

I had the same problem with after market dust caps on my '94 Ranger trailer. After 3 sets I called Ranger and ordered new ones and they never came off. I wonder if the new caps are made in China and there is a minuscule difference in the cap size that allows it to pop off.

I ordered new rotors from Pacific Trailers and bought new caps for them; no problems. Maybe, as a last ditch effort, measure your caps and order new ones from Pacific instead of getting them off the rack somewhere.

 

[flashback]

Make a U shaped strap to fit over the cap and fasten it to the hub with a hose clamp.

 

[airshot]

Too bad you don't have a video of your complete procedure for repacking wheel bearings.

Been doing automotive, truck and trailer wheel bearings for +- 60 years and never had one just "pop off" after 20 miles of use, or multiple times.

I have had a few over the years pop off, but akways something wrong with the hub or the cap. All I can add is...the caps should be really tight getting in...really tight!
When I put mine in, it takes a big hard rubber mallet and a number of harsh, hard swings to get the cap to seat !!
When they get removed, it takes a very large/ long pair of channel lock pliers wirking very hard, rocking back and forth and prying with a flat blade to get them out !!
My guess is the caps are to small or the hubs are to big or worn out...

 

[04fxdwgi25]

If you need to beat them on or force them off, there is something going on for them to just fall off when rolling.

Doesn't sound logical.

 

[flashback]

Yeah that's what @airshot said. I don't think that's the op's problem..

 

[l008com]

If you need to beat them on or force them off, there is something going on for them to just fall off when rolling.

Doesn't sound logical.

I agree, it doesn't make sense. They're so tight when installing that half of them get destroyed and I have to go grab another one. Yet as tight as they are, driving about 20 miles pops them right off. It doesn't really make sense.

 

[flashback]

Just take a beer can and cut a strip off and clamp it over the cap with a hose clamp..

 

[l008com]

First boat ride of the year today.

I got everything ready, and right before I hit the road, I got a rubber mallet and tapped both caps on nice and tight. I hopped in and started driving. I stopped exactly 1 mile down the road. These are suburban roads so the speeds were probably 30 mph tops, possibly less than that. And they were all smooth roads, that one mile was almost all recently repaved.

So a mile down the road, I hopped out and checked and BOTH caps had gotten loose and backed out a bit!

Tapped them back on and made it to the boat ramp without loosing the. Tapped them tight again, launched, drive around the harbor, went back in, tapped them on and pulled the boat.

I headed home the same way I went (8 miles total each way). I actually stopped halfway home to pick something up at the store and one of the caps was gone.

So I'm off too autozone tomorrow to get my 10th pair of caps. If anyone has any new ideas how I can get these to stay on, please let me know. I do have some JB Weld, I was thinking about using some of that. I still have no idea what force is pushing these things out. They are way too tight to be wobbling loose, and the driving is SO short. And nothing on the inside, the pin, nut etc are rubbing on the inside of the cap. The only thing left would be air pressure from things heating up in there. They were warm to the touch when I got home but they weren't hot ( the hubs i mean ). And its awfully strange that this never happened during the first 30 years of driving this thing around.

I know, "just get new hubs". Well cash is very tight right now so thats not going to happen anytime soon. I'm thinking the idea of rubber caps and hose clamps to hold them on might be the best idea. But if it is air pressure blowing these caps off (which seems like a crazy idea), it will probably just blow rubber ones up like a balloon and pop them or bump them off too.

This is such a weird problem.

 

[airshot]

You might try drilling and tapping the edge of the hub so a screw can be screwed in to hold the cap in place. After drilling and taoping, be sure the chips are all cleaned out, worse case is two screws opposite each other.

 

[l008com]

COUGH COUGH, rubber boots. jmo

Where can I get rubber ones? I'm ready to use rubber ones and a pair of hose clamps at this point, and then in a few years I'll replace the axle and hubs with something nice and new. But this is madness.

 

[l008com]

So if I were somehow packing the hubs wrong, what possible "wrong" ways to do it could cause this? Too little grease? Too much grease? Those are the only two options I can think of really.

 

[airshot]

If it were a grease issue...to much could cause that...Do your hubs have an overfill hole ?

 

[l008com]

If it were a grease issue...to much could cause that...Do your hubs have an overfill hole ?

Its definitely not too much grease, you can tell just by looking, its not jammed in there. There are no grease fittings on these hubs so I just squeeze a bunch of it in there. But theres plenty of air space.