Oil or grease on wheel

[Booyah45828]

Originally Posted by cadillackid

What’s the most common wheel bearing failure you see in the shop? Incorrect assembly or lack of lube ? (Leaky seals etc)

Most major failures are caused by lack of lube or old/dirty lube. 90% of the hubs I see are oil lubricated, and the hubs that aren't on a drive axle don't hold that much. So any leak, especially one like this is cause for alarm because you'll be out of lube so quickly.

Lube loss that I see is usually caused by damage typically from hitting stuff. Non-damage lube loss is usually attributed to failing wheel seals, whose service life is affected by bearing end play also. In 3rd is age, gaskets and seals don't last forever and plastic gets brittle over time.

Bearings do have a service life, so a set failing isn't necessarily caused by a lack of maintenance. But good lube and keeping the adjustment in check can get a lot of time/miles out of them.

[cadillackid]

both of my front wheel seals failed.. I wouldve thought they were replaced when king pins were done in 2017... I hired that job out.. however pulling the seals revealed pretty ratty looking seals so I can only assume they were in a lot longer and never changed (even though I was charged for it)..
the left side went bad rather quickly.. I noticed a little oil in a pre-trip.. topped off the hub and less than 3 weeks later of just in town driving it was leaking bad enough to get on the brake disc and run down the tire if parked overnight..



when I did the brakes I noticed the right side was just starting to seep..



maybe the seals were replaced but installed wrong who knows.. it didnt take much leakage to notice a good size drop in the level for sure!

[mmoore6856]

power washers and driving thru high water (hot hub meets cold water then sucking the water in. i also spent 2 days at a truck yard that had 2-3 feet of floodwater 7 trailers and almost all the 28 hubs were contaminated with flood water. remember that plug has a vent hole as it must breath. as the hub warms up hot air expands as it cools it contracts. when it cools it sucks in dust and moisture. without the vent the hub would breath thru the seal and you dont want that. the rubber plug should be soft and easy to pull off and put on. anything with oil in it must be vented somehow or you will have seal leaks

[cadillackid]

I was wondering where the vent would be. The rubber plug makes sense since it should never be filled past the bottom of it..

[Booyah45828]

Wheel seals can be pretty finicky to install correctly. And some of them are super sensitive to install procedure and wheel end play. Sometimes the seal surface isn't the best shape, and will allow leaking that way. It's not mentioned too often, but I've smeared gear oil rtv between the seal and hub before on ones that are problems, just to be sure that there's no rust or nicks that can cause problems.

Also, some of your teflon seals don't want lubed on install, and if you lube them with oil or grease they'll leak because the seal didn't "burn in" like it's supposed to.

That rubber plug is more of a deflector then seal. They'll let a lot of dust and water in overtime, especially if it's on a trailer axle.

[cadillackid]

I never knew about possibly not piling the seal .. that was the first thing I did was lube the seal and the hub area on the spindle where it contacts . It’s an SKF 78258 seal with rubber and a spring . I guess I should’ve read up before I put em on. Ha! No leaks yet so we will see

[mmoore6856]

i use cr seals and glue the rubber to the spindle. they are designed to have the sealing surface inside the seal assembly instead of on the spindle. if your spindle is grooved it corrects that without a wear ring (which can be difficult to install without the special tool) have installed a few thousand in my carrer and never had a failure. i think there are other brands that use this system but can not name them as when i find something that works i stick with it

[Booyah45828]

SKF makes a bunch of types of seals. The ones we usually use are scotseal or scotsealxl which are the cr(chicago rawhide) seals I believe. Those are usually rubber(hnbr I think) so they're not teflon. The teflon one I had issues with was made by national, and that's who told me not to lube it at install. They even suggested driving it right away so that the seal doesn't have time to be effected by the bearing lube. I don't remember why those were used over a scotseal.

A lot of wheel seals have the dynamic surface internal of the seal. That's so they can control the surface better compared to sealing the spindle. And yes, I glue the seal to spindle and hub with gear oil rtv. I've had issues before where the rubber lip wouldn't seal against one or the other. Easier to cover all bases the first time then it is to redo a leaker the 2nd.

[cadillackid]

so the part that spun was actually inside the seal and not the seal spinning over the spindle?


mine appear to be scotseal "classic" and are just the regular moving shaft style im familiar with which has a circular spring in it and the whole seal rotates on the hub sliding around the spindle landing for lack of better description. . I wondered if I should scotch-brite it or not.. I cleaned the spindle up with brakleen and wiped it down good.. it was shiny and smooth. I didnt dull it up withy scotch brite like I do with transmission drums...

[mmoore6856]

Originally Posted by cadillackid

so the part that spun was actually inside the seal and not the seal spinning over the spindle?


mine appear to be scotseal "classic" and are just the regular moving shaft style im familiar with which has a circular spring in it and the whole seal rotates on the hub sliding around the spindle landing for lack of better description. . I wondered if I should scotch-brite it or not.. I cleaned the spindle up with brakleen and wiped it down good.. it was shiny and smooth. I didnt dull it up withy scotch brite like I do with transmission drums...

yes they are forgiving of bad spindals like i said not one failure on any of the thousands that i have used

[cadillackid]

Cool stuff ! If I have any issues I’ll dev look into them ..

[LargeMargeInBaja]

It mostly sat for years.
You could replace the hub cap...
...or you could wrap the hub in Gorilla® tape, a popular temporary fix.
.
Then, in another couple years, replace the problem child.
And its opposite mate at the other end of that axle for good measure.
Fact is, that would probably be a good time to re-fresh the lube.
.
.
PS:
I have it on good authority Gorilla© tape is *not* intended as a hair gel.
The proper product is Gorilla® glue.
You are on Tacky Tick, right?

[cadillackid]

I recently used flex tape and gorilla tape to get me 850 miles home with a blown turbo boost hose…. She pulled 20 PSI on the mountains and didn’t pop… it was starting to whistle a little again during the last 50 miles or so but still pulled boost and Ohio is flat

[DougH]

Everyone thank you so much. I got around to watching a youtube video of a man doing this job, (got to love youtube) Anyway looks like something I can do and I guess I'll do both sides while I'm at it. Referring to my picture, I'm thinking 4 bolts are holding that cap on. And even though I have had this bus for two years all of the work I've done has been renovating the inside. I've never been to a truck parts store, been to lots of auto parts stores, google search was very confusing. My zip is 63072 could you point me to a truck parts store? Will attempt this job when the weather gets a little warmer, hoping for first week in Feb. Thanks again.

[HamSkoolie]

I remember pulling drive axles on the 5 ton trucks in the military (that's 5 ton cross county 10 ton on the highway). Being in the Marine Corps with difficult supply chain and a limited budget, when we pulled the axles to get to the wheel bearings we would make a new gasket for the axles with a small ball peen hammer and a brown office folder. Cut a hole in the center with a razor knife or scissors so you can slide it down the axle shaft. Use the flat of the ball peen to "cut" the folder around the hub on the end of the axle then use to round of the ball peen to "cut" the bolt holes.
NEVER had one leak.

[mmoore6856]

Originally Posted by HamSkoolie

I remember pulling drive axles on the 5 ton trucks in the military (that's 5 ton cross county 10 ton on the highway). Being in the Marine Corps with difficult supply chain and a limited budget, when we pulled the axles to get to the wheel bearings we would make a new gasket for the axles with a small ball peen hammer and a brown office folder. Cut a hole in the center with a razor knife or scissors so you can slide it down the axle shaft. Use the flat of the ball peen to "cut" the folder around the hub on the end of the axle then use to round of the ball peen to "cut" the bolt holes.
NEVER had one leak.

cheerios boxes worked too

[cadillackid]

I’ve made more than one thermostat gasket out of boxes.. I think in my case it was probably oil filter box since I usually carried the filters for the car in its trunk.. have a thermostat stick. Pull over someplace like a das station , pull the stat out completely . Cardboard gasket and fill with the hose to get home .. (and hose down their clot where I did the work) lolol I doubt gas stations even have a hose anymore

[mmoore6856]

We always made it home

[DougH]

Finally got around to doing this, amazingly simple. Never had car work do that. Was able to order the parts thru a NAPA store 9 miles away. https://i.postimg.cc/hvh4CCbv/Compre...459-9129-1.jpg
Ty all

[DougH]

Not sure what happened thought I posted this yesterday. Thanks all it was a surprisingly easy job; have never had ANY car work go that easy. Now on to the other side.