Big Bearing Blues
 

I have never liked the big bearing 9" axles because of my experience with the seals for the oil lubricated tapered roller bearing seal leaking and nothing I do seems to matter. Not talking about a big leak, but a weep that over time makes a mess.

My only solution has been to have a seal surface machined on the axle and run outer axle seals and pack the roller bearing in grease....

Can you get sealed ball bearing for the large ends like are employed on the small bearing ends? Just wondering?

Mine never leaked......

Tapered rollers are much stronger than the ball set up.

Clean it up and seal it as best you can. Wipe it up if it weeps.

Finish this one up for you guys: After pulling the axles I realized that when I had new bearings and seals, and the problem was that the stooges that did the work did not check the axles because the leak was the seal boss at the end of the axles where the seal seals the axles itself versus the bearing and the housing.

I hammered in inner axles seals NAPA 15142. Then I check the unfinished seal boss on the axles by placing a line across it with a market and seeing there the seal lip hit boss to confirm that the seal will ride on the boss and it did.

I then spent some time sanding down the unfinished boss area until the lathe marks were removed.

I used 1 1/2" pvc pipe with a 1 1/2" coupling on the end and a 1 1/4" coupling hammered inside the 1 1/2" coupling as an installed for speedi sleeve 99149, which I wrapped with electrical tape to prevent the surface from being damaged during installation.

I then used a needle fitting on my grease gun to pack the roller bearing with grease.

I re-installed the axles! Job done.... leaks gone.