Taking the plunge. My journey as an O/O.

Well, there ya go

 

They last a long time. My Truck axles are original w/ over 2 mil miles. I had one on my Trailer that was a little loose, too much endplay. It wore the inside tire, like it had been run low on air. Couldn’t figure out why. Told Tire Guy at Petro of all places. He caught it. Checked all the others. I’ve seen a couple newer Trucks recently, at the Shops. 1 O/O Pete, and 1 Werner Freightliner, both under 200k, with bad drive axle bearings. They must have been too tight, or bad metal? Not a very common thing. Yours are probably fine. Yeah they get hot when too tight, or going bad. But still run cool when loose, Side loading, and wearing uneven.Usually will cause a seal to leak, or abs sensor to throw code

 

If you have loose wheel bearings it will always wear the inside of the tire(s)

A wheel bearing that is loose enough to cause inside tire wear will not run hot enough that you will notice the difference by touch.

You can’t feel a hub, or use a laser thermometer and say for certain that any difference in temperature is from the wheel bearings alone. Brakes will make a bigger difference, unless you bring the truck to a stop without using them.

I’d say that wear is from the tire being under inflated or it’s just a bad tire.

 

He is correct. The only way to check wheel bearings is with a dial indicator. Brakes make more heat on the hub than the bearings will even if out of adjustment. Unless they are toast. Mine appears to be the originals with 1.1 million miles. I run mine at .001 to .000 end play. Think the book calls for .010 to .005?every set I’ve ever checked were way lose.

And if your hub is ever so hot you shouldn’t touch it with your bare hands you got major problems and you will smell it before you get your hand near it. Don’t think I’ve ever seen mine more than about 20 deg above ambient temps before or after I adjusted them.

 

So you never know how good or bad the wheel bearings become (except abnormal tire wear or wheel wobbling) unless you use that gauge? When does it need to be done, as a precaution, every 500k miles, 1 million? I was hoping there could be some other external indicators.

The only time I knew that I lost a bearing was when it was smoking bad. At that point, the road service was needed.

 

I checked mine when I bought it at 700k then of course every time a wheel seal goes out you need to set it. I will be checking mine again when I put on new drive tires. I currently have 360k miles on my drives. So maybe again in the fall ( 400k) ?

If it’s wobbling it way way to late.

ps I have one tire wearing like that on the inside and it’s the one that I had a shop on the road changed the wheel seal and set the bearings. Started chopping within 2k miles. I reset the bearing ( because the new seal failed by the time I got back home) . But it was to late the tire is now choppy. Was just fine before wheel seal was changed.

 

After I read that accident a few year ago, close to Joliet, IL, when a drive wheel dis-attached and went over the medium, killing a pregnant women, I am looking at those seals and touching hubs almost every day, thinking of that accident. When a car 's bearing is going bad, you can easily hear it. I guess it is not the case here with all that other noise.

 

The only way you could kinda check is to Jack it up and release the brakes and pull up and down with a pry bar. You shouldn’t detect any movement. Anytime I jack a axle For any reason I do this. Steer, drives and trailer. That won’t help with tire ware but you’ll know if you got an issue.