Caravan Wheel Bearings

Bearing buddies are used on boat trailers to jack grease into the wheel bearings and keep water out. Personaly I would not bother with them on a caravan as it is too easy to over grease them and have grease being flung out all over the rims.
Regards Nav.

Hi Turist.
I have been using bearing buddies on my off road camper for over 12 months. I have only experienced a very slight grease problem on the rims & that was from using too much grease in the first place.

I had bearing buddies on the boat trailer I used to own, it was custom built as an "Off Road" boat trailer. I could not keep bearing buddies on it for any length of time, rocks thrown up by my 4wd would sooner or later (usually sooner), knock the bearing buddies out and then everything was coated with a thick layer of dirt and grit. I got sick of having to continually pull the outer bearing and clean then re-grease.

I see no advantage in using them on anything other than a boat trailer where their function is to basically "overfill" the bearing hub assembly so as to prevent the ingress of water. I felt at the time that I used them, and still do , that any benefits gained were marginal at most.

After replacing the fourth lost bearing buddy I reverted to the normal grease caps and although they sustained a few side dents I didn't loose them like the bearing buddies.

The bearing buddies really protrude from the hub and having a square section its quite easy for them to get knocked out.

A disadvantage in using them that sellers won't tell you is that it's not unknown for enthusiastic use of the grease gun to force the seal out of the hub.


Ian

I would not recomended it as you will over greese them do the job propely and save yourself a major problen down the track.I also own a 20ft tandem and it dose not take all that long to do a proper job and inspect at the same time.

Only my thoughts.

dj patrol

Dave
Don't use them except in boat trailers,,

Old fashion yearly maintenance is the go..

If you remove the bearings of your Van, and wash and repack them yearly, that is enuf, and I recon you get a better job.
And you get to do a physical inspection, the most important thing.. looking for dis-colouration and chrome spoting in the grease

Make sure you check the seals, and repack them with high temp water proof grease and you will never have any issues,, except for that grease getting on your clothes

Cheers

Bucky

They work well on trailers, mainly boat trailers without drum brakes as most people end up blowing the back seal out (too much grease) the throw out will be all through your brakes & as far as them coming of is normally caused by the person putting to much grease in them or are using a cheap copy when pumping the grease in watch the spring & stop greasing before the spring is fully compressed or the hub will be too pressurised & the buddy will be forced off

They are only designed to try to keep water out of the hub by keeping the hub under pressure & are not designed to be a hub greaser & if they are working this way you have a seal blown which is going to let the pressure out (grease) & let the water,dust,sand etc in. I would just grease your hubs regularly & not bother with them but i would fit the rear/back seal with the marine one i have found these to out last the std seal.

Compared to grease caps, the buddies are heavy and they sit way out from the hub mount - their mass constributes to them vibrating out in my view..... more likelty than being hit IMO. You can get various rear seal types - ones that don't pop out under grease pressure, but the old grease still comes out the rear of course when we pump new stuff in the front - it flings around the place and does make some mess (mainly inside the rim). If full of grease, you can stop any water getting into the hub at all. Re campers - even the best maintained hubs still take in a little water on crossings and rust will commence on bearings parts during a trip. IF we could stop the buddies from falling off, they might be a good idea for campers, but those hubs have a very hard life on the rough roads. BTW - my Campomatic uses HD large stub axles and hubs - can't get buddies for that size. AND.... if someone could develop an axle with a small airway that allows the hub to breathe.... now that would be a winner - no water going in, and no buddy required.

DO NOT USE THEM on anything with drum brakes.
Bearing buddies work by constantly keeping slight positive pressure in your hubs- this builds up with use and is relieved by the buddies letting a bit escape as necessary thru the buddy itself.
The problem lies with that slight positive pressure..... unless your seals are absolutley perfect, ie: better than 95% of seals on most vans and trailers, you will get some seepage of grease/oil thru the seal. (These seals were never designed for use with positive pressure OR use with oil.)
This will completely stop your electric or override drum brakes from working. (It only takes a tiny amount of grease/oil contamination to stop these brakes working. They are then close to impossible to fix without throwing your old linings away and replacing.
For the same reason DO NOT USE the "oil" hubs on drum brakes such as the ones now sold by Supercheap. (DuraHub) Your brakes will more than likely become useless.

Disk brakes are a little better as much leakage will get flung off, and worst case only one side of the disk will be contaminated.
Cheers