Wheel bearings

Replace 'em , they're bad . Should slide right off the spindle , unless they've been hot - real hot . Replace the seals while you're at it , they'll be bad too . Especially if the bearings have been hot .

I've had to cut off a couple of them after telling the owner they needed a repair, months earlier. Like the idiots who continue to drive with a missing cap. Soon the grease is full of sand, the bearings are destroyed, and in one case the wheel came off.

Just replace them. Those things have been underwater many times and the purpose of a boat is go to out and have fun, not fix a trailer on the side of a busy highway.

Wes

I cut two races off spindles when I had my welding business. Both were on the side of the road trailers, and there's a trick to doing it so you don't get the spindles, too. Both guys were just about to cry happy when those frozen races came off there.

When I pull the wheels, do I take them over to the NAPA shop for them to punch the old ones out, and install new? I had a drum once that a shop wanted $25 to put five new lugs into. That NAPA did it for $ 1.25 each including labor.

Steve

Nope , take your mig welder and run a bead all the way around the inside of the outer race . When the weld cools , they'll fall out . Done that trick more than once on Harley wheels , neck bearings , swingarm bearings . If they don't fall out , they'll be very easy to drive out with a screwdriver or drift punch .

Thanks, Snag. Guess there still is some value here amongst all the bullshit.

Steve

But DON'T do that with the spindle bearings, unless you're playing a _really_ nasty joke on someone.

Ya just gotta sift a bit . Helps if ya block all those that spew political BS ... glad I could help !

Yeah, I sift a lot lately. Anyone who puts this purple lipped big eared point man in the category of humans gets into my filter. Rather just go out to the shop and pound metal.

Know whut uh mean, Vern?

Steve

Lemme see.......... one goes on the pointy thing, and one goes in the hole. Wait, wait, I know this one.

Steve

Don't even think aboud it. New bearings are cheap. Replace them so you have a known starting point. Pack the new bearings with good marine grease.

Torque the nut until you feel drag, then back off one notch of the castellated nut and the cotter key. Drive 50 miles, feel the hubs. If they're uncomfortably hot, back the nut off another notch.

Try not to dunk the hubs when launching. If that's not feasible, then put bearing buddies on the hubs ... and inspect your bearings every spring.

So sayeth this old fisherman who has never had to deal with a twisted-off spindle but seen a lot of them at side of the road, bad weekends for feckless buggers.

As a motorcyclist, I am wary of boats on trailers, you never know when a wheel will come off, or what will pop out. I watched a life jacket float around in one for a few miles, then it popped up, the wind caught it and it's strap brought a 6 foot wooden oar with it. One of my friends was killed by another negligent boater on the road.

Wheel bearings get warm when you use them. When you dunk them in cool water, everything contracts and it sucks water in. The water pits the bearings, and then they continue to get worse like a pothole in the road. This happened to yours, replace them all. This can be avoided by installing the grease seals backwards, so grease can escape but water won't get in, and replacing the caps with "Bearing buddys", or "bullseye" caps. They have a Zerk fitting and hold the grease under spring pressure, and any excess is pushed out behind the wheel . I have found the Bullseye leaks less grease film. They may make a small mess, but being stuck along the roadway with a ruined spindle, or causing a wreck, is far worse. Use a waterproof grease, and never mix it with another type.

Your commentary sounds like something a retarded Leftist would say.

Please let it not be so!

Gunner

"Lenin called them "useful idiots," those people living in liberal democracies who by giving moral and material support to a totalitarian ideology in effect were braiding the rope that would hang them. Why people who enjoyed freedom and prosperity worked passionately to destroy both is a fascinating question, one still with us today. Now the useful idiots can be found in the chorus of appeasement, reflexive anti-Americanism, and sentimental idealism trying to inhibit the necessary responses to another freedom-hating ideology, radical Islam"

Bruce C. Thornton, a professor of Classics at American University of Cal State Fresno