Grease axles: How to jack the Cruiser

[artgpo]

I am planning to grease my Cruiser's Eazy Lube axles and have a couple of questions.







1) I am taking it to a friend's place as he has jacks and a professional grease gun attached to a compressor. What capacity jack is required? I am guessing the Cruiser weighs about 9,200 lbs as-is.



2) Should I leave the Cruiser attached to the truck or unhitch and leave on the front jacks while jacking up the axles (of course, one side at a time)?



Thanks!

[Stan]

If you are using the easy lube fittings you don't need to jack the rig. There has been a lot of discussion on the pro/cons of these fittings. Personally I don't like them or use them. I roll one tire up on my tire ramp which lifts the opposite tire off the ground. I can then pull the tire and repack the bearings by hand. This takes longer but keeps the rig more steady and you don't need jacks. If you do jack it up, I leave the truck attached and raise the landing gear so as not to place excessive force on the legs.

[artgpo]

Stan, thanks! I want to kack it up so I can easily spin the wheel while greasing.

[Lloyd]

Art, take a look at this thread. It might change your mind on jacking it up under the axle. It did mine.

http://www.crossroadsrv.com/forum/fo...s.asp?TID=1937

[rcflyer]

I would not use the professional air pressure grease gun. If you must use the easy lube which I strongly recommend against use a hand gun. That way you can control the pressure and less likely to blow the grease seals. With the air gun you may blow the seal and get grease into the brakes and not know you have done so.



As for jacking on the axles DON'T. I am one that had an axle fail and if there had been any evidence that the trailer had been jacked on the axles there would have been no warranty. Lippert specifically tells you in their instructions not tojack on the axles.

[artgpo]

How do you get new tires put onto the RV if you cannot jack it up?

Hand grease gun it will be.

[jgerni]

I jacked mine up under the frame using blocks andthe tow vehicles jack. Works fine but a bit slow. When I tried to use the ramp itlooked like the single tire that was holding all the weight was under way to much pressure.

[Ridgeman]

Art, I've used the EZ lube system and I won't do it again. I posted on here last year about my experience with the EZ lube. I ended up with a completely grease cotaminated brake on one wheel and had to replace the whole brake assembly.



Your bearings were likely hand packed at the factory. So in order to get grease with the EZ lube from theinner bearing where the outlet hole is to the outer bearing you must pump enough grease to completely fill the chamber between the inner and outer berings. If I recall correctly it took about 70-80 pumps from my hand grease gununtil I got grease coming out of the outer bearing.6-8 months and about 1500 miles later I decided to pull the drums to check brakes, change seals, and hand lube bearings. I found one of my brakes was completely contaminated with gease. The seal had failed to stop that wheel full of grease from getting into the drum area. The other 3 seals had allowed a small amount of grease to get by, but it didn't get out to any of the brake components.





If youmust usethe EZ lube. I would just give it 4-5 pumps from a hand pump. That will lube your inner bearing only. Then you could pull the outer bearing out and hand lube it. That saves you from pulling the whole drum and possibly damaging the inner seal. After my experience, I have sworn off the EZ lube and I just hand pack them now and change the seals every time.

[Ridgeman]

Forgot to input on jacking. I lift the trailer at the frame with a 6 ton bottle jack close to the wheel I am servicing. I lift it about 3 1/2 inches. That takes most of the weight off the wheel. Then I put a floor jack under the axle u bolts and lift the tire off the ground. It takes very little pressure to lift the axle once the frame is jacked up. You should never lift the entire weight of the rig on the axle, even at the u bolts. If you had a trailer with the axle above the springs it would be a different story.

[artgpo]

A buddy came over to the storage place and together we got the axles lubed. He brought a wood stair-step thing to which we added a couple of Lynx Levelers and got one wheel up at a time. We popped off the rubber protective cap and while one of us pumped in the grease the other rotated the wheel. When we saw grease coming back out the front we stopped the pumping. Each axle took about 1/2 cartridge of lithium grease. It worked just as the Dexter E-Z Lube manual stated. No jacking was required and only a hand pumped grease gun was used. I was concerned because of all the horror stories I had heard about blowing out the rear seal. Now I am good to go for another year.

[Ridgeman]

Hope it works out better for you than it did for me. Let us know what you find when you pull the drums next year.

[Lloyd]

Art:
I too will be interested to hear how this pans out. Please keep us updated next spring.

[cwit]

I wish you good luck but am afarid your not going to have any breaks in short order. Hope I"m wroung.

[artgpo]

I do not understand the issue here. For one, my local RV repair guy swears by the E-Z Lubes. I went to him and asked him to pull the wheels and grease the bearings. After finding out it had the E-Z Lube axles he asked me why I wanted to spend the money when I could easily do it myself without pulling wheels.



My second question is if the back seal was blown out and grease was now pouring onto my brakes why did the grease come out the front as per Dexter's service manual? Grease under pressure would take the path of least resistance would it not and that path would be the blown out back seal?

[Ridgeman]

Originally Posted by artgpo

I do not understand the issue here. For one, my local RV repair guy swears by the E-Z Lubes. I went to him and asked him to pull the wheels and grease the bearings. After finding out it had the E-Z Lube axles he asked me why I wanted to spend the money when I could easily do it myself without pulling wheels.



My second question is if the back seal was blown out and grease was now pouring onto my brakes why did the grease come out the front as per Dexter's service manual? Grease under pressure would take the path of least resistance would it not and that path would be the blown out back seal?

In my case it was not a case of "blown out back seals". WhenI lubed mine with the EZ lube, the grease came out the front bearing just like yours and just like it is supposed to per the instructions. I don't know for sure if any of the grease was pushed out thru the rear seal at the timeI was hand pumping in the grease. But since it is a double lipped seal,I suspect it still offered more resistance for the grease than the straight shot it has thru the rear bearing, into the wide open void in the hub and out the outer bearing.



I suspect that when the grease gets warmed up as when traveling, it gets a little thinner, expands a littleand flows a little easier under the seal. With the wholehubfull of grease it may also create a little pressurewhich forces the grease out. In mine I obviously had oneseal that was bad as thatdrum was full of grease. I didn't know I had a bad seal until I pulled the drum the spring afterI used the EZ lube. Which isanother reason to pull the drums andcheck out brake and seal condition.



As I previously posted I also had grease intrusion into the other 3wheels , but not enough to get to the brakeshoes. I also found on all the wheels that the grease leaked outthe past the outer bearing and therubber cap and into the plastic hub covers.



I just don't see any need to have all that grease in the hub and I think it is a good idea to pull the drums periodically to see what's going on in there. By the way I don't think there is any maintenance task on my trailer or truck that I hate worse than greasing wheel bearings and hubs.But somebody has (or should) todo it.

[sking]

Art every past boat I have owned has had easy lube or the like. I have never blown a rear seal buy pumping it full of grease. Simply add the grease slowly and when it comes out the front you should be fine. If a seal wasinstalled wrong then yes it will leak. The boat I have now has oil filled hubs with a clear seal thatallows you to see it. I would love to have that setup on my TT.

[oldblue]

How do you inspect bearings and replace seals with out pulling the wheels?

[artgpo]

Originally Posted by sking

Art every past boat I have owned has had easy lube or the like. I have never blown a rear seal buy pumping it full of grease. Simply add the grease slowly and when it comes out the front you should be fine. If a seal wasinstalled wrong then yes it will leak. The boat I have now has oil filled hubs with a clear seal thatallows you to see it. I would love to have that setup on my TT.

Shane, I put the grease in exactly per Dexter's instructions: pump the grease while rotating the wheel. It would be interesting to know how manyrear seals actually fail. It would be equally disconcerting to be one of those whose seal(s) did fail!



What bothers me is that I very much value the opinions and experiences of my fellow Crossroads owners so I wonder about the contrary postings.

[cwit]

My dealer used the easy lube before I bought my camper new.3 out of 4 seals leaked. I had to replace shoes and drums to get rid of the problem. I got new under warrenty from dealer. I pull drums and check brakes and replace seals every 24,000 miles or every 3rd year. I do a close visual every year and break adj every 3,000 miles.

[artgpo]

Is it possible the dealer did not use a hand pump grease gun and instead used a compressed air model?