Wheel assembly comes of truck and kills 2

Most of the time this happens it is the mechanic that leaves out a cotter pin or locking ring from the hub assembly after working on it. Of course a driver cannot check that.

The other possibility is a catastrophic bearing failure. That is much more rare but with more and more crap being manufactured in China, it does happen.

If a bearing is failing the only chance a driver has an indication in the pre-trip is finding a oil leak or a brake with lots of slack. Now most drivers will overlook the oil/grease leek until something worse happens. Other idiots will go down there and just adjust up the brake and speed up the whole catastrophe. That is why the DOT want's brake cards for those that adjust. That is why adjusting up a automatic slack adjuster is frowned upon; you might be overlooking a bigger problem.

While driving, a bad bearing will fell like a dragging brake. Don't overlook it or back the brake off. That is another reason why you should keep you hands off the brakes if you don't know what is going on.

 

If a set of duals come off together, with the wheels/tires intact, most likely the hub didn't have any oil in it and the bearings overheated. I carry 90wt oil, the quart size/walmart cheapest/Autozone, etc. CHECK the oil in the hubs, folks. The clear plastic 'sight glass' needs to be cleaned and checked everyday as you are doing pretrip. You might work for a company that does a lot of drop and hook. Notice if the sight cover is clean or dirty. Odds favor it being dirty, oil covered/dust covered, and you can't see the level of the oil. Why? Because the driver before you didn't even check is why it is dirty. Get a rag and wipe those suckers off and see if oil is in the hubs. Or else. I KNOW. I didn't check a hub once; in a hurry. #### thing got so hot that it started smoking. I got out, thought it was brake and backed the brake off. It was an enclosed hub, is what it was, and it went bad. Had to cut off the spindle and reweld a new spindle/axle on it. Needless to say it took the best part of a day. Was cool when I went thru a mudhole at the truckstop a few miles away. Tires steamed like Old Faithful. Oh boy, I was lucky axle didn't fall off. Get a few rubber cover plugs off your Shop. They go bad sometimes when you pry them off.

 

and what Toomanybikes said, about the cotter pin/locking ring.

 

The old RR chassis' and Z vans didn't have a plug for oil and were grease filled. Of all the RR wagons I pulled, I never had a wheel or assembly come off, not to say they didn't, but they sure pulled hard.

 

I had that happen, but did not have to cut the spindle off, yet when he took the wheels and bearings off I thought, this is very bad, can it be fixed?

Them I said to the man, "Wow, that's messed up real bad, can it be fixed?"

The mechanic said, "No problem I can fill all of that filled it in them turned it down, put it all back together with new bearings and seals, and it will be just fine. And that's what he did and it did not take very long. And it worked perfectly. That was at the White Elephant Truck Stop, the shop behind it, on I-20 back in the 70's.

I always carried a jug of 90 Weight with me and it came in very handy several times. Yet at times it just happens, the bearings fail.