servicing wheel bearings on the trailex car trailer

I was told that as soon as I arrive home from the cross country trip from Ohio I should repack the wheel bearings of the tailer. I thought that is odd that for a brand new trailer I would think it would be a few years down the road before I need to think about lubricating the wheel bearings.
I suspected that there may be something more to it that the manufacturer didn't tell me. It could be the axle assemblies they purchase have a history of poor lubrication. These axles are Dexter with electric brakes. Since having a bearing seized on the interstate far away from home with a car is the last thing you want to experience I have meant to inspect and add grease to the bearings quite some time. I have not done it sooner because it is such a production to get the trailer out onto the driveway. I finally got around to make time to do it.

the trailer is so light so there is no need to use a jack stand as long as I don't poke my head under the wheel well

indeed there is not much extra grease on the axle shaft; the two bearings has grease but I can see they will starve if the grease spread away or dries out

I didn't want to bother with the messy job os repacking the bearing the old school method so I use the grease gun with a noodle tip to squirt more grease into all the crevices that I could

I squirted in a lot more grease; I used moly grease for this job as it is already in the grease gun and is a huge mess to change it

one wheel done and three more to go; once I figured out this known good method the rest is very quick and painless

I knew I have plenty of grease whey the grease starts to ooze out when I install the washer and nut

I scrapped off the excess grease and put it into the bearing cap

I use this zip lock bag to keep the parts from picking up grit particles

I also inspected the condition of the drum and brake shoes for wear; drum brakes will always exhibit un-uniform brake lining wears

trailer electric brake is one of the most ingenious engineering; it is a electromagnet and mechanical force amplifier that boost the brake force with minute amount of current

Attention to details is one important trait. As I removed the sheet metal clip on each wheel that holds the outer axle nut in place I first check the axle nut to see how far it is from fulling tighten against the bearings. All were as I expected with my intuition of these kind of bearing and the application. The LF, LR, and RF are about 1/4 turn from fully tight. Why this matters? If they are inconsistent more investigation may be needed.

When I got to the RR which was the last in this arbitrary service sequence (I did it this way to minimize exposing to the sun as it clocks over the sky), I noticed it had slightly more slop than the other three. Red flag went up in my mind. Proceed with caution. It was only about 180-degree more then the rest so in total about 270-degree from fully tighten.

I examined the inner and outer bearings. There was no sign of grease starvation. I bin it just how it was assembled inconsistently. I left all four 1/4 turn from fully tighten.



the shiny face of the inner surface is where this amplification magic happens

where I park the trailer is very uneven and rough surface and I have to use block and tackle to winch it into place