Bearing Buddy wannabees

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Deadmeat

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Knoxville, TN
In 1984 I bought a 14-foot v-bottom Alumacraft that I sold a couple of years later but I kept the trailer. The first thing I did with the trailer is to replace the wheel bearings. For some reason that I can't remember I didn't use Bearing Buddies on the wheels. Instead, I used some bearing protectors that were of a clear plastic and had a grease fitting in the center. After each trip to the lake I would just let the bearings cool, squirt grease in the fittings, and keep going.

I sold the boat and trailer in 2005, and in that length of time I never replaced the wheel bearings, and that boat was on the lake at least twice a week for the first twelve years and at least twice a month thereafter. Maybe I'm wrong, but that seems like an inordinately long time to go without changing wheel bearings, and I attribute it to the bearing protectors as well as lubing them after each trip. Maybe Bearing Buddies would do the same thing, but I don't know. I'd love to get another set of those clear plastic bearing protectors but I have no idea where I got them or how to find them again. Anybody got any ideas?
 
You mean these?

8827.jpg


https://shop.easternmarine.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=catalog.prodInfo&productID=8827&categoryID=189
 
Adding grease after every trip should not be necessary, think about your car, the bearings only get repacked every 25k miles.
the grease doesn't burn up or wash away Unless you have a bad seal (most likely caused by adding grease every trip)
when you add too much grease you force the grease out the back seal causing it to fail..

Wayne
 
I just bought a new Dexter axle assemly and got it with the EZ Lube hubs. Figured that the price of them outweighed the hassel of packing bearings by hand and replacing seals that get screwed up pulling the bearing out.
 
Captain Ahab,
That's them! Many thanks.

As for adding grease after every trip, yeah, maybe that's overkill but whatever I was doing I'll probably keep doing it. Keeping the same wheel bearings for 21 years tells me I must be doing something right.
 

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