Wheel Bearing Replacement

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an RV or an interest in RVing!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
See posts with no answers
Scott 3

Scott 3

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 17, 2016
Posts
694
I started replacing my wheel bearings today.  My TT is a 2016 bought new in the fall of 15.  We have put approximately 20-25k miles on it.  The wheels on the rear axle had a little play before I started so I started with the rear.  AutoZone didn't have Timken bearings in stock.  The guy at AutoZone was a little jerky at first until I told him I had the bearing numbers.  When the Timkens showed out of stock he tried to sell me the no name brand on the shelf.  He took a bearing out of the package and it felt chincy.  I could imagine the cheap bearing disintegrating in my hub or burning up.  I said no thank you and headed over to NAPA.  The guy was very helpful and I was able to get a complete set of SKF bearings which is all I had time for today.  The other bearings will be shipped to the store in the a.m.  I bought high temp lithium grease.  The installation of the first set went great.  The play in the wheel is gone.  I topped off the tire's air pressure in the garage.  The wheel is on.  The sun set and DW had lasgna waiting so I was done for the day.  Three more to go...
 
I had no luck finding USA made wheel bearings at any of the local auto parts stores.  They couldn't even order Timken bearings.  I finally ordered fours sets of Timken bearings from Amazon.  It took 3-4 hours to do the whole job.  It would go quicker if I had taller jack stands and bigger floor jacks.
 
Did your Timkens say USA on them?  I thought I read that Timken wasn't 100% American made anymore.  Timken was my preference but my window of opportunity is too short to wait.  I've been jammed for time.  Next weekend we take the TT down to Long Island and from there the camping season goes full swing.
 
The races on the first one wouldn't come out.  I  could not tell if they were seized or pressed into the hub but they were not budging.  They did not appear scored.  I gambled a little bit and figurded the next one will give me a better idea.
 
You need to flip the drum over and drive them out with a brass drift and hammer. These is a small lip on the edge of the race that you can drive on.  Go from side to side. DO NOT reuse them with new bearings even if they look good.
 
I will second NOT to use the old races. You are essentially wearing the new bearings to match the existing worn race.  They wear together as time goes on, which is why you don't mix up the bearings when re-packing them. 

IMO if you are pressed for time repack the existing bearings, and keep the new sets with you in case of an emergency.  The odds are the existing bearings are fine and only need repacking.  A little wheel wobble isn't abnormal, and often tightens up when everything heats up.
 
 
The Timken bearings I got last fall were all marked made in USA.  Changing out the race is part of replacing the bearings.  Flip the hub over and drive out the race by carefully placing a punch on the lip of the race and working from side to side until it comes out the bottom.  I'd also recommend going to Harbor Freight and getting a bearing seating kit.  It will make driving the new races in much easier and less chance of a stray hammer blow scaring the race.  You can also use the bearing seating kit to set the grease seal too but a block of wood works just as well.

If you'll put the new races in the freezer for a couple of hours before you do the job, it will shrink them slightly and make them easier to install.  Not necessary but it just makes it easier.
 
I put The races in a little cooler with dry ice for a few minutes then just drop them in. Wear a glove.
 
Some drums made today no longer have the notches for a drift pin and no edge of the race is exposed.  To remove the race there are two ways to do it.  You can weld a bead on the race surface and it will shrink when cool.  The other way is to grind the notches in with a tool like a Dremel and drive the race out as usual.  I prefer to make the notches so that the bearing can be serviced easily in the future.

One thing I discovered over many years in tool & die making is that some steels, when super cooled with dry ice, will expand to a larger size when returned to room temperature.  Because of this, I would never use the dry ice procedure.
 
As already stated, race and bearing need to be new from the beginning. Unfortunately when it comes to wheel bearings, we don't have a lot of choices, and Timken have some imports also. Skf are better then the discount china made that most parts house stock. Before I retired, I worked my way up to superintendent over a  couple Asphalt Plants and we had close to 1000 bearings up to 6 inch diameter shafts on the plants. After changing all types of bearings for 35yrs, you develop a plan and have a set of tools just for that job. For wheel bearings use a Bull prick punch, you can pop a inside race out rally easy. Brass is not needed for the old race, new race yes, I still have a ingots of Babbit, its soft like lead, works great as a big punch. It used to be common to cast bearing bushings out of babbit on large shafts. You can get a Bull prick punch here and add it to your quiver for changing bearings. Also if you
are setting your bearings up loose and they tighten because of heat, you have problems and that is not a good work around to solve it,,,Gregg
https://www.grainger.com/category/punches/punching-tools/tools/ecatalog/N-1625Z1yzgdf6
 
lynnmor said:
Some drums made today no longer have the notches for a drift pin and no edge of the race is exposed.  To remove the race there are two ways to do it.  You can weld a bead on the race surface and it will shrink when cool.  The other way is to grind the notches in with a tool like a Dremel and drive the race out as usual.  I prefer to make the notches so that the bearing can be serviced easily in the future.

One thing I discovered over many years in tool & die making is that some steels, when super cooled with dry ice, will expand to a larger size when returned to room temperature.  Because of this, I would never use the dry ice procedure.
Click to expand...

I?ve used dry ice to remove the races from the few non notched hubs I?ve ran across. I?ve used dry ice on races since the late sixties in the trucking business, hundreds of races and millions of miles. Caterpillar engineer told me years ago cooling race to dry ice temperature OK, but never colder such as liquid nitrogen.
 
The DuPont engineers told me that I was wrong and that the growth couldn't happen, after all where would that material come from.  Actual measuring and testing proved them to be full of it.  After that I ordered parts that were pre-frozen and then finished to size.  Those parts returned to original size.  That solved some major wear problems.
 
Not trying to be confrontational in any way. Just sharing my experiences. To remove an old race I?ve heated hub, then put dry ice on race and race just falls out.
IMO and on my equipment the the most significant causes of bearing failure is resetting the bearing.
You can never get it reset exactly like it was. It?s like putting a new bearing in an old race or visa versa. The trucking industry pretty much solved this problem a few years ago with crush sleeves and 300 lbs. plus of torque on sleeve. I begin to figure it out when the industry went to outboard brakes in the eighties and the bearings were not disturbed during brake changes. Our bearing failure went from frequent to almost non existent. The only time the bearings were disturbed was during seal replacement and if you had bearing failure, that would be the one. I eventually went to replacing bearings and races if I had a seal failure and bearing failure went to zero in my operation. I realize that bearing manufacturing processes improved over the years immensely.
Some say that grease packed bearings aren?t as susceptible to resetting as oil bathed bearings. I disagree. Wear is wear. Bearing life did increase  when we started converting to oil bath in the sixties and I think it was due to less bearing disturbance from packing bearings that didn?t need packing in the first place.
 
If you have a welder, run a bead of weld (the hotter the better) around the race. Let it cool, and it will come out easily.
 
Thanks everyone for your advice. I know you are right.  Hopefully well packed bearings in high temp grease will  be good for a while.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Members online

Total: 1,156 (members: 23, guests: 1,133)

Forum statistics

Threads
131,927
Posts
1,387,640
Members
137,675
Latest member
ozgal
Back
Top Bottom