Inner hub seal leak

Kudos to you for catching to before all the lube ran out, and you started cooking metal, and the entire dual wheel assembly flying off at highway speeds. Or burning up the diff.

 

Good job driver!!! You did it right, walk around that truck every single time you get out of it.

As to what you could have done, nothing. Wheel seals go from age, or sitting to long and drying up. It also could have been defective parts. Non of which could be caused or prevented by you. That’s trucking!

What’s important is you caught it before the bearing let go at 65-70mph, seperating from your truck and killing someone. Or causing an accident.

Again, atta boy for doing it right.

 

Seen a set sitting five hundred feet off the highway in a field, and seen some of our trucks come in with the axle chained up where they came off. It’s a several hundred pound very destructive missile, I think people have been killed by them before.

 

'Like a missile': Witness to fatal Hwy. 417 collision almost struck by flying wheel | CBC News

 

Leaking wheel seals can typically be caught way before they get to the point of soaking the brake shoes and covering the wheels and tires with oil. Address your current oil service to include a thorough preventative maintenance inspection to catch these items early on so that you can plan the downtime. They are hard to see from the outside, but in most on highway applications the wheel seal can be seen seeping and just starting to leak way before it gets to the severity you experienced. If one is leaking how far away are the others? If you have them done altogether you know how old they are. After all they all turn the same.

 

Had a newly replaced one go on the front last week. Newer mechanic had left the wear sleeve on the spindle.

Good on you for catching it.

 

Sometimes they just stay wet and don't get any worse. I dunno if they just aren't installing them properly but I see that a lot and our shop doesn't seem terribly motivated to fix them.

 

I walk around after a hard run in the hills. If you smell a strong odor of hot grease. Probably got one seeping and need to fix it.