On Tue, 20 Feb 2007 16:49:13 GMT, "JoeSpareBedroom"
wrote:
"Short Wave Sportfishing" wrote in message
...
JoeSpareBedroom wrote:
"Short Wave Sportfishing" wrote in message
m...
Don White wrote:
"Short Wave Sportfishing" wrote in message
m...
Many people don't know how to properly pack a bearing anyway.
That's why I'm leary about dia-assembling and re-packing. What if I
screw something up?
It's not that hard and the are devices out there that can help pack
bearings.
If you do it by hand, it takes patience. If you use a packing device,
you should do the procedure twice.
It's not that hard.
I just spoke to my boat dealer. $60 for labor to do the whole job, if I
get the parts from them. Sounds like a better deal than trying to flatbed
a busted up trailer.
Pansy.
Maybe, but how much does the "device" cost - the one you mentioned above?
Joe, doing it by hand is easy. Here are some tips: (stolen from:
http://users.westco.net/~tandjlm/berring.htm
Packing Bearings By Hand:
Now you have to pack your bearings. Here's something I should have said
earler but didn't. If you are putting in new bearings or if you are reusing
the old ones and have got them good and clean, with all of the old grease
out, they are at this moment what one might call "dry". By that I mean that
they don't have any grease protecting them from corrosion or from
scratching. Actually if they are new there will be some sort of packing
grease on them from the facotry to stop corrosion but that doesn't count.
Please don't take that new or clean bearing in your paw and give it a good
spin just for the pure hell of it. If you do the result will be micorscopic
scratches in the rollers becasue there's no grease there to lubricate them.
One of these days those scratches will grow up to be wolfs and they will
bite you square on the ass, causing a bearing failure out there on the road
somehwere. Now on to bearing packing.
If anyone can describe, in writing, how to pack bearing they certainly
deserve the Pulitizer. I'll try to give a good description of it but with
little hope of explaining it very well. I'm right handed so I'll assume
you're right handed too for my description. If you are left handed do this
while standing on your head or something - you know, whatever it takes.
Take a glob of clean grease about the size of a golf ball and plop it into
the palm of your left hand, pull the grease down so the glob tapers as it
goes towards the heel of your hand. Now take the new bearing (or freshly
cleaned - completly cleaned - old bearing if you're just repacking them)
and hold it in your right hand with your first finger through the center
hole to steady it and your thumb on the upper edge to apply downward
pressure. You want the small end pointing up. Remember that the bearing is
made up of three parts; an outer cage, and inner cage, and the rollers
inbetween. There is a space inbetween the inner and outer cages where the
rollers are contained. You want to press that berring into the thin taper
of grease in your left palm such that grease is forced into that little
space and to completly surround the rollers. You want to keep pressing,
lifting, and moving a bit farther into the grease in your plam over and
over until grease comes out the small space between the inner and outer
cages at the top of the bearing. When it does move the bearing around a
little bit, you know, turn it a bit, and keep doing it until more grease
comes out. Keep doing this until you have had grease come out the space all
the way around the bearing. Once you have done this you will have forced
grease to completly fill the voids where the rollers fit between the inner
and outer cages. Its an interesting process and actually only takes about a
minute per bearing once you get the hang of it. Once you get one done set
the bearing aside on a clean surface (a piece of newspaper is OK) and do it
to the other bearing for that hub. There, you've packed your bearings. Just
remember that the goal here is to make sure that you have grease completly
coating the insides of that bearing, not simply rubbed around on its
outside. If you were to just plaster grease all over the outside of the
bearing without forcing it into the void the effect would be a dry bearing
under load when you finished the job and first moved the trailer. This
would cause extreme heat to be generted becasue of the initial friction.
The heat would melt the grease inside the hub and the void would be filled
- so it wouldn't self destruct immediately. But you would have done damage
to the bearing before the hot grease got to where it should have been in
the first place. That bearing's days are numbered and the number is not a
large one.
--
*****Have a Spectacular Day!*****
John H