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TXUex.
A buddy of mine has an 05 Pantera Classic and I have just bought a 09 P2. He has had all kinds of trouble with his trailer. He has always had his wheel bearings repacked by a BassCat dealer. Hes had to have all the suspension rebuilt on both sides of the trailer and 2yrs ago he had a bearing fail and had all repacked by hand again. He has now had another bearing fail and ruin a hub, spindle, new Cooper Cobra tire and brakes. Is this a problem with that year model trailer?He and I have been pulling boat trailers for a very long time and have always had bearing buddies on all of our boat trailers except on his BassCat, without ever having any bearing problem, until now and hes had 2 bearings go out in 2yrs. Im curious why yall dont recommend using bearing buddies. I havent had any issues with mine yet but am concerned about having these same issues.
Because pumping grease into the hubs blows out the rear seals and allows water intrusion. Service every 5,000 miles, or in most cases two or three years. Ive had one failure, and that was on my 90 single axle, which had the buddies on it, and was over greased. The person servicing the hubs has to know how to pre-load the bearings, and set up the bearings. It is not a job I want a novice doing on my trailer, and I use competent mechanics to do mine. I dont even trust myself !
Replace every two years and preload to 22 inch pounds . — Seals are the downfall for the most part . — Theyre designed to keep the grease IN , not the water OUT . — should be a double lip seal , but Ive never seen one . — Every time you back it in it gets a few drops of water in it .
Being in the bearing and PT industry I have been to numerous manufacturer schools…Timken, NTN, +#@ and all the others. They always talk about bearing failure. No matter which brand you lean towards the most, they all have the same thing to say when it comes to failure and that is the number one cause for it is over greasing and under greasing. Over lubrication cause heat, think of a snowplow pushing snow. Same thing with too much grease and the roller has to push it through the raceway. Under lubrication causes heat as well, the roller has to actually ride on a film of grease in the raceway to prevent this. The primary function of a seal is to keep foreign matter out. The seal was never designed or intended to keep anything in. If you follow the bearings manufacturer lube instructions i think most would be surprised at how much is needed for proper bearing lubrication to get the most out of it. Example – a standard hand pump grease gun, not the little minis you buy at a big box, the full 20oz cartridge size. 33 pumps of the handle on one of those will disperse 1oz of grease. I sell mounted double row balls with a shaft size of 4″ that only calls for 1/4oz of grease. Really pay attention to suggested mfr lubrication to get the most out of your bearings. It can all be found online.
We have no issues with any recent years and bearing failures. It has been well over 25 years since we had any issues.
How often does basscat recommend servicing the bearings?
3 to 5 years or more. The new Vault units require a thixotropic grease and very few have requested the tubes. We suspect few have rebuilt their Vault hubs and obviously there are not many instances of issues.
I had two fail last year, and both sets that failed I had just put on less than a year before, I found on the second set the infamous word CHINA so I blame myself for not checking before I installed them. I now have USA bearing but I had to order them not as a set, but individually as all the sets I found were not made here, and I made sure that all the seals were double lip.
Unfortunately , after 42 years in the automotive repair field , Ive seen more and more products being produced in China for large American companies , and bearings are no exception . — This is just my humble opinion , but KOYO ( Japanese manufacturing ) seems to be one of the best you can buy at this point in time . — They are the leading supplier for most of the Japanese auto industry , as well as motorcycles and outboard motors . — If I can find them for whatever application I need , Im not afraid to use them with the confidence that Ive done as good a job for my customer as possible . — As for the double lip seals , Id like the part # please 1stinLA , as I feel the seals are designed to keep things where they belong , either in or out , or we wouldnt need lip seals at all , just a piece of rubber would suffice . ( IMHO )
Bigcatter, much like you I have been in the automotive and later power plant field for over 50 years. I have never seen a wheel bearing of the typeboat trailers use preloaded. I worked on VW and Porsches for 15 years and the Germans dont do it. I have worked on domestic auto/trucks since1961 when I went to work in my Uncles machine shop and I wont say I have packed thousands but I have definitely packed hundresd and I have never preloaded a bearing/spindle combination of that type.
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