If you are not doing so already. Carry a spare wheel bearing in your rig. I found this out the hard way. I could have been back on the road in less than an hour, but instead I had to limp it to a trailer shop in the middle of no where that took about three days to get the part and fix it. Granted they had to buff the axle to fix the medal on medal groves it caused too.

 

 

I don't necessarily see this as an either/or decision set. Perform proper maintenance on your trailer, AND carry spare inner and outer axle bearings (and seals). I would pack the spare bearings with the proper grease beforehand to make roadside swaps as fast and simple as possible, since this sort of problem invariably happens at the worst possible time - heavy traffic, inclement weather, etc.

 

Two plus decades ago, after dealing with a failed bearing, on a Sunday no less, I decided to carry pre-packed spares. After all, this wasn't my first failed bearing. So, a box of packed bearings and seals for every trailer we own.

To date, I've haven't used the any of the spares! But no way do I dare travel without the spares...they must have some sort of magical powers!

 

There are also complete kits available with grease, parts and such for the complete assembly. I carry one of these in my trailer as you never know what will fail and I want to be ready and get back on the road. These are usually more expensive than buying the parts yourself but you can find them rather inexpensively if you look often and hard enough.

 

How do I figure out which bearing _kit_ I need for my axle? I have a picture of the tag from my axle so I know it's a Dexter D52 axle, 5200 lb. I have the Dexter parts diagram that has individual parts listed on it. I found a kit on the dexter web site that matches the individual part numbers but the title of the kit says it's for a 6000 lb axle.

The kit is part number K71-719-00, about 3/4 of the way down the page. $57 per axle
https://www.dexteraxle.com/products/...nents/bearings

Dexter Parts Online has a kit for half the price: BEARING KIT, 15123, 25580 BEARINGS, 10-36 DOUBLE LIP SEAL ID 2.250, 1 WHEEL
The kit doesn't provide numbers for every part so I don't know that it's an exact match.

 

The best way to know for sure is to record the actual part numbers off the bearings and seals then next time you do your annual or every other years bearing service job. Dexter uses the exact same spindle on several weight rated axles, my 5200lb axles with six lug hub/drums shared spindle specs with the 7K axle and when I upgraded to the eight lug hub/drums (moved up to 16" wheels and G rated tires) the included bearings were about 50% larger in the new hubs than the originals. Brakes and drum size were the same at 12"X2" and the I.D. of the bearings was obviously the same as they ride on the same spindle but the bearings were substantially bigger as the 8 lug hubs have a larger bearing O.D. There were 2 possible rear seal options for my upgrade, I had to measure what I had to determine which one to order.

 

I haven't had my bearings apart. At least, not me personally. The service shop did the bearings two years ago as part of the inspection I had them do when I bought the trailer from a third party.

I don't like leaving a job half done. I would have to pull everything apart, get the numbers, order it and once everything came in, put it back together. This would all have to happen at the storage lot.

I was thinking of doing the brakes at the same time I did the bearings. Two birds, one stone sort of thing.

 

 

I've never had this happen to me, but have seen the results a couple of times.

I ordered my current trailer with oil bath axles. Combined with the ability of my '17 SD to track trailer mileage I hope this solves the problem.

 

I always carry a spare set of bearings and this year it paid off. Despite having all the bearings replaced this year on our travel trailer, it appears one of the new bearings was defective as it failed on our second trip out. It was on a long weekend, and I was able to pull over on an exit ramp off the highway but was out in the middle of nowhere. If I did not have this bearing with me, I would have been stuck for a couple days due to the holiday, but luckily enough, I was up and running again within two hours. I just consider it cheap insurance.

 

 

My horse trailer use to only have brakes on one axle, when I added brakes to that axle I keep an extra hub (non brake), bearings, axle nut, retainer pin and cap in the back of tack storage area out of the way.
I've seen enough tire/wheel/hub assemblies come off of trailers that I figure a spare hub kit and tire wouldn't be a bad thing.

 

I've always just take my bearings apart when the parts store is open, see what i got and do a parts run if necessary. It's all pretty standardized when dealing with electric drums, oddball hardware is rare.
When i upgraded to disk brakes, I did put a spare hub on board, since disk isn't as common and needs ordering at most trailer supply houses. This wasn't because i was so much worried about failure on the road, but delaying a trip waiting on parts due to a pre trip inspection failure. I'd like to think I would do maintenance with plenty of time to source parts, but i know me.....