Grease Wheel Bearings

[Bill Lampkin]

Just had the front wheel bearings serviced on my 2005 Patriot. $582.04!! 4hrs labor. Mechanic said old grease and bearings looked like new. He cleaned, regreased, new seals. Beaver says to do this every 6,000 miles. Your experience? Can front bearings be converted to oil bath type (disc brakes)??

[Mike Shumack]

I would be interested in this to. Subscribed.

[Fred Cook]

Just had the front wheel bearings serviced on my 2005 Patriot. $582.04!! 4hrs labor. Mechanic said old grease and bearings looked like new. He cleaned, regreased, new seals. Beaver says to do this every 6,000 miles. Your experience? Can front bearings be converted to oil bath type (disc brakes)??

Wow, $582 in painful for greasing front bearings. Oil bath is what I have on the front of our PT. Believe that’s the best way to go if you are able to do it.

[Lee Welbanks]

I never could figure out why they (Beaver) used grease in their front wheels, to convert you have to remove, change the seal to a wet type and change the hub cover to a window model. Trucks went to wet seals mid to late 60's.
Bill, had your coach ever had the fronts off before? I took mine off a year ago and all looked like new and we are at 60k miles. I always check my hub temp's while on the road and have never seen anything over what the front tires are running at, and my front end is heavy.

[Bill Lampkin]

Lee, Mechanic says all looked like new, but I don't know if its been done before. We're at 45,000 mi since new. Just don't know if the  swap to oil can be made on hubs with disc brakes??

[Gerald Farris]

Bill,
Yes, you can convert your front and tag axle wheel bearings to oil bath. Like Lee said, just change the seals and hub covers to the correct parts for an oil bath installation. Disc brakes are not a problem, in fact my last 2 Beavers came with oil bath bearing and disc brakes on all front and tag axle wheels. However, I only use synthetic oil (I prefer 75w140 but others prefer 75W90), and my Marquis had 165,000 miles with one oil and seal change at 105,000 when I had to change the front brake rotors due to rotor wear, and I never had a bearing problem.

Gerald

[Bill Sprague]

When I was a lot younger (!) I was a Stemco rep. 

If you drive twice a year to snowbird, grease may be better because it does not drain to the bottom of the hub making the seals dry out.  If you drive enough to keep oil the oil circulating, you can go further between service intervals with oil. 

At about year two, I elected to change to oil from the original Beaver grease.  The cost was the same as a repack.  Ten years later we sold it and there was no indication that additional service was needed.  However, if I felt a need, it would have been easy to drain and replace the oil myself. 

Consider staying with grease if you don't drive much.  Consider changing to oil if you drive regularly.

[Mike Shumack]

Do you know the part number for the Stemco hub and the seal?

Or where to go to look it up.

My front axle is a Dana E-1462W, but I don't know what "knuckle" (p/n) was used - if that matters (for the 2005 Patriot).

[Lee Welbanks]

Mike, Probably the best way to get the correct seal, would be to have the old grease seal # and cross it with a Stemco wet seal number. If you have the grease seal # most Napa stores can get the correct wet seal, and hub cover cap. Or if you have the number from the Hub you can get the seal that way too.

[Bill Lampkin]

Thanks for all the tips, So does anyone adhere to the 6,000 mile service interval on their greased front hubs? Or am I the only one who has had this service done? Just trying to see how important this is, 'cause its a heavy hit to my wallet.

[Jim Nichols]

Never repacked our bearings up to 60,000 miles. At 60k rather than repack we had oil bath seals and center hub's installed. Presently using 75w90 oil.  Looking at heavy truck forumsing they all have oil bath on the tractor front axles and their trailers. They usually check bearings when replacing the brakes. Of course that's 500k miles. So oil or wet bearings are the way to go. Can't remember price but I do remember my brides birthday.

[Mandy Canales]

When I purchased our '90 Beaver Marquis in 1992 the original owner was a dealership owner and either changed to oil bearings or the oil bearings were original.  We now have 258K on the coach and have had to only add a little oil twice in all those years.  There maybe a little oil seepage some times but have never had any problems with front wheel bearings.  We did replace a rear seal one time and all looks good.

[George Harwell]

The 6000 mile interval is misleading and at the least unnecessary. My coach is an 03 Monterey and the lubrication manual shows 30,000 mile service and I perform the re packing every 50,000 miles. The grease and bearings still look good. The coach has 135,000 miles on the original bearings. I just found the " Chassis Lubrication Guide " that came with my coach and on page 28 is the requirement for the Marquis, Patriot, Thunder, and Contessa. The Monterey is on page 35. Item 12 on page 28 for your coach reads 30,000 miles or annually to repack the axel hubs with grease. It also uses the same timeframe for oil hubs. I can text you a photo of the chart if you like. Hope this helps calm the nerves and bank account.

[Jerry Carr]

Bill on our 06 PT we did grease once at 50K then I changed to oil it was about the same cost never had a problem with either system

[Bill Lampkin]

Jerry, My lube schedule too says 30k or annually for hubs. Greasing the kingpins is at 6k. Ok, Its a good day to learn something new!! Thanks Jerry!