Hub oil

Aw that is like pron to me so to speak. What a pretty shot of a OOS critera leaking hub. I misspelled a word on purpose not to be nasty or anything but to empahsize the technical merits of such a bad hub leak. It's beautiful.

OTOH it's not beautiful, its been a while since it started leaking no one did any pretrip on that that day for sure, at least.

That is one of my buttons. Have a defect, get the #### thing fixed at company shop or find a shop to get it fixed. Who cars about your precious .34 a mile. Now you lose it through OOS and endure bigger expenses. What a waste.

 

I am deaf. Need a certain amount of boost to Db levels to get the sound.

That is one sound I never want to hear in any vehicle. particualrly heavy trucks. that crying of steel before the big and irrevocable SNAPTH that echoes across your now WTF mind as your lying eyes see your wheels dual bounce into a opposing traffic school bus....taking out the driver and lurches the thing onto the side blocking the whole lane and probably killing 20 kids and hurting the rest who were bouncing off the dead kids as cushions as they ate glass and such.

THAT should get you to religiously check hubs and everything else.

 

My company put me into a newer Cascadia with a steer wheel that has the rubber removable cap on the center. I've gotten used to seeing a little bit of oil and/or moisture around these caps everyday. But in the last day there was enough grease to cover most of the larger plastic area around the seal- but it wasn't sprayed all over the wheel or tire. I brought a mechanic over and he said it was good to go. He said DOT didn't care unless it was sprayed around the wheel and tires. I said I'm not concerned about DOT, I don't want the steer wheel to seize up. He said that wouldn't happen.

My question is, what WOULD happen if the steer wheel lost a significant amount of hub oil going down the road at 67?

 

If you have a small amount of oil seeping past the plug perhaps the plug itself needs to be replaced. That's not something considered a leak unless like what the mechanic said happens. It is also possible that the bolts that hold that little cover on could come loose and they could weep through there.

The area you really want to be looking at is the inside of the wheels where the seal is. That's where you're going to have a blowout leak if the seal blows out. You'll see it all over the inside of the tires.

To answer your question if you lost a significant amount of hub oil, what would happen?

The oil keeps the bearing cool, also by the way the adjustment keeps the bearing cool, but at any rate if you lost oil the bearing would get hotter and hotter until the bearing disintegrates.

Myself, I would think if that were happening going down the road you would begin to feel that at whatever wheel it's at and be able to stop. I don't think it would be something like instantaneously your truck goes out of control. I would think it's something like I said as a bearing gets hotter and hotter it's going to get louder and you're going to feel more play in the wheel.

If you're really worried the best thing is to get a heat gun and every now and then stop and shoot the hubl and that will tell you whether the bearing is getting hot or not. It's a good idea for anybody to do that honestly because then you know, for example if it were your own truck, then you know your bearings are running cool and everything is getting lubricated and is adjusted correctly.

 

Even if you pulled that rubber plug out and threw it in the trash, you'd still keep oil because of centrifugal force. Don't sweat it seeping.

Now I will tell you from experience, if that plug has gotten old enough to constantly seep like that, DON'T give it a firm tap with your palm or your toes. The plastic sight glass has probably been heat cycled so many times that it's brittle. Ask me how I know.... So if you're going to replace the plug, you might as well grab a couple quarts of gear oil, and two new hub caps. They're like twenty five bucks each, and take about fifteen minutes to replace with fourteen of those minutes cleaning gasket surfaces and refilling with oil.

 

DON'T run without a plug in the hub cap. I know a driver lost the rubber plug after he checked the fluid level. He put a cork in the hole. It fell out running down the road. Driving pushed the oil out the open hub cap. He passed me, his passenger side hub was on fire. I yelped at him on the radio. I'm surprised he didn't smell the smoke from the oil burning. He was able to drive, steering was not a problem. We were driving 70mph he slowed to 35mph. He drove another 10 miles to a truckstop. When he stopped the bearing seized. He called Axle Surgeon to replace spindle.

 

what's a good temp for warmed up hubs / difs / trans / shocks to be at? i don't have sensors on everything and 50 gauges on the dash, just coolant temp and oil temp/pressure, anything else you have to use your nose or your ears to tell when something about to up and go

 

If you shoot a temperature on all of them they all should be about the same. You're looking for the one that is significantly hotter.