How to check grease on Cottrell hub bearings?

The other thing to look at is that most if not all of the hub fires are with Meritor hubs. You may have the Hendrickson hubs if so you don't have near the worries.

 

Alex, would you happen to have an ex PTS/Hadley piece of equipment? When it all was liquidated back in 2008 there were a lot of trucks on the auction block

 

Gotta be carefull checking the oil-less hubs. The bearing is factory sealed in grease, not sitting in an oil bath. If there is sign of a leak, it will be on the inside of the hub (looking from the slack adjuster side on in) and it will only be a little tiny looking wet spot because it's grease and not oil leaking. EVERY TIME I stop .... for any reason .... I walk around the trailer .... yeah yeah, to check the load, but more so to sniff the hubs and run my hand over them. Bottom line is that no matter what you do, 99% of the time, when these things fail, they fail quickly and catastrophically. I know based on personal experience. I have not lost a wheel assembly, nor have I had a trailer burn up on me. Call me paranoid, but my eyes are glued to my mirrors looking for those first little tell tale smoke rings, or a wobbling tire. I have had 2 POS oil-less Meritor hubs go bad on me. I'm happy to see oil bath hubs becoming the new norm in car haul again. Just like to good ol days, boys and girls, your pre trip doesn't start and end with the ignition key - it's a walk around .. and part of that walk around is checking oil levels in hubs front to rear and sniffing around your drives for gear oil smells from bad seals, filters, etc

The 'shop' can check for play as well. Our fleet calls it "Monthly Meritor Check" and there is even a check list for it per unit.

 

Correct - That is EXACTLY how I saw my first.

 

Thank you speedloader. Was just going to ask about the sealed hubs on Cottrells. Really like the Dana axles on the Millers with oil bath. They may not seal out 100% of the dust, but can visually see if there is oil in the hub...& obviously can smell when they leak. Wheel seals are $25(labor aside) & thinking they may be cheaper over the years to maintain.

 

Found some info on these, check page 8 for inspection....

Basically it says grease may be visible near & around seal, but that does not indicate a leak. Huh?
Know this is just something that is NEW TO ME, but seems like a pain in *** vs oil bath.

http://www.hendrickson-intl.com/CMSPages/GetFile.aspx?guid=ab72b69c-5038-4670-809d-7f8579831179

 

Any clue what part number or wheel seal a 2003 Cottrell 7512 trailer uses ?