Been having problems keeping hub seals from leaking on heavy haul trucks and trailers. Any tricks, secrets, or seal preference?
Anytime I’ve ever had issues with seals the spindle was the culprit. What type of seals are you using? Every now and then one truck or trailer would like an old school seal with a wedding band and some like the newer style where the seal turns in itself. What type of hub oil you using? How tight you running trailer bearings?
I'm partial to Stemco.
Tried the usual seals, National, Stemco. Synthetic or dino oil. Bearing torques depend on single or dual nuts. Run um tight or not so tight seals seem to leak with heavy loads. How is the spindle at fault?
Mostly the spindle isn’t straight with the axle tube, hub runs with a little camber or caster. How are the tires wearing? How heavy are you running? Are there signs of the bearing turning on the spindle?
tire wear seems normal. sometimes too heavy. some bearings have the signs of turning others not. can there realy be that many crooked spindles?
Are you using the spacer cone type bearing/ seal kits? I've chucked the spacer on several occasions when the torque specs for said application just didn't feel right and applied the calibrated elbow torque and backed off one flat, never had a problem. Me thinks those spacer kits were implemented to idiot proof the torque process, worked with several "mechanics" that just could not fathom the wheel bearing torque thing. Even with the approved torque wrench method.
All I use is 46305 CR seals, the Stemco Voyager is not worth a damn. On anything with three axles or more, which all we have are three axle trailers 122 to be exact, the front and rear axles need to be zero end play. Not more than zero not less than zero. The sweep/pressure in turns allows brake dust into seals. I have argued this with Stemco and Hendrickson reps many times. Any trailer axle built in the last 15 years is set up robotically. We had a group of new trailers that started leaking in the first two months, but here was the catch. It was always on the right side never the left. I pulled caps and set up a dial indicator with a rep present, the rep saw .015 on all three on the right side, the left hovered at .005 and less. But even on a two axle I always set at zero. Plus I only use 75x90 synthetic oil in hubs. I change out roughly three original OEM seals a week with that many trailers. Plus our drivers commit x amount of zero turns in parking lots on pavement so those get worked over pretty hard.
We try and only use CR/SKF or National/Timken seals when possible, not a fan of the Stemco stuff either. 75x90 synthetic Valvoline with Lucas hub oil.
dont like those spagers they dont allow for wear or variation. i know the spec nowadays is 1-5 thou. i normaly set @ 0. ive seen new trucks with leaking seals, just junk quality. i only have problems with heavy haul seals. usualy when we tear them down the inner nut is a bit loose. havent measured but they are not @ 0 anymore.
That's why setting at zero allows for wear. The Hubs with spacer are ConMet, I use to not reuse the spacer on drive seals but I stopped doing that. By chance are any of these drive axles equipped with disc brakes?
no disc all drum brakes.