This Old Trailer: Changing Hydraulic Trailer Brake to Electric- Video

Today on This Old Trailer we are going to replace hydraulic brakes with electric brakes. Basically it is going to be a matter of taking off the tires, removing the hubs, go ahead and removing the backing plates and drain the hydraulic lines of fluid, and then going ahead and bolting on the new brakes. We will start off, obviously, by taking the wheels off. OK, go ahead and remove the dust cover here. It is an E-Z Lube spindle so this has a tang washer that we need to bush back down so we can unlock the castle nut right here. Just push it back down. Now we should be able to take the hub right off. The next task is to go ahead and disconnect the hydraulic lines. We have that disconnected. Now we need to pull the clip out so we can release this part here. And that is just a little piece of metal right here that you can just pry out. Alright, now we can unbolt this at the back of the hydraulic backing plate. Alright, now we can unbolt the backing plate from the flange on the axle. Now we are down to our bare axle. We will clean it up a little bit and then reinstall the brakes. 1:24 more

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4/17/2011 5:12:34 PM

How To Clean Weld Nuts- Video

A common problem that we run into with a lot of our vehicles that have existing weld nuts in the bottom of the frame is that when you go to try to put a bolt in them you have an excessive amount of road grime or rust built up in there and when you go to put your bolt inside the weld nuts you find not only does it not want to thread but it also appears that the bolt is too big for the weld nut. The first thing that typically comes to mind is that the bolts that I received are too big and 99.9 percent of the time this is not the case. What we have actually got here is an excessive amount of rust and debris built up in the weld nuts that are preventing the bolt from starting. We are going to show you how to get those thoroughly cleaned out so that we can not only get our bolt started but to get it threaded completely into the weld nut. 00:41 more

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12/1/2010 11:14:23 AM

Remove and Reinstall a Trailer Hub Review- Video

First off, we will take off the hub, then take off the nut on the inside, and we will pop the whole hub off and take it to the workbench and clean it up from there. You can see there is a lot of rust in there, there is a lot of condensation. Basically water got in there through either condensation or a seal leak. We definitely need to take it apart and clean it up. This has whats called a tang washer. Instead of a regular cotter pin that goes up and down, it has a little piece of metal that goes between the notches here and you have to push this back, flat, so you can take off the nut. And the whole thing just slides off. Sometimes if it gets caught on the hub here you can beat it to get it to come loose. We will go ahead and clean this spindle off here, and then we will put our hub back on. Give it a test fit first to make sure it all slides on pretty good and then go ahead and take it back off. What is good is to take a thin layer, it doesnt have to be much just a little bit, to kind of help the parts slide on a little bit more than they used to. more

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8/7/2008 12:20:07 PM

Remove, Inspect, and Reinstall Trailer Bearings, Race, and Seals Demonstration- Video

This seal has to come out. Every time you pack the bearings you have to destroy a seal and put a new one in, its just the way works. There are actually two different ways of doing it, I know that there is a special tool for it, I dont have it, most people dont. What I like to do is take a punch and push this in a little bit, or actually make a hole in it, so it pulls the seal away from the edge where you can stick a screwdriver in there, tap it in a few times and pop it out. It is a little bit less stressful on the bearing. The other way of doing it, if you dont have that, is to take a wooden stake or something like the handle of this and go in though there and beat it out that way. It puts a lot of wear and tear on the bearing, but its another way of doing it. I dont know if you can see there or not how I punched it in and it brought the seal away from the edge. And that is where we will try to work in our screwdriver. There we go. more

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7/24/2008 5:48:49 AM

Inspecting and Packing Trailer Bearings with Grease Demonstration- Video

We will go ahead and get the bearing out and wipe it down real fast. Makes it a little bit easier to see, rotate the bearing cage, look for anything that bounces up and down too much. This is almost a continuous line so I think the cage is pretty good on this one. So we will just keep cleaning it up until it spins freely. Im looking for little nicks or stuff like that. Sometimes you can see a little bit of wear, it is like a dark band here, light band here, dark band here. For the most part that is kind of acceptable, it is not perfect, but in this case I think it will be fine. If its really dark you definitely want to change it out because that part of the bearing, this actual roller got overheated, but this one looks pretty darn good. We will pack this side and then flip it over and then pack the other side. Get a good gob, and put a light coating on the race itself. Actually, it doesnt take much, you dont have to pack it full. Because a lot of it doesnt get really used. In a marine application like this, you want to go ahead and get the grease gun out and use it since we have the special spindles. Go ahead and fill the cavity that way, but for most land trailers this is pretty much enough as it is. Grab your new bearing here, and all you have to do is work it inside of here a little bit at a time. Keep going around, flip it over and we want to get inside it here. Just get inside, so when the bearing starts spinning, it gets all worked up in there. Give it a couple of spins maybe before you pop it in there. more

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7/23/2008 7:19:54 AM

Packing Trailer Bearing Demonstration- Video

Do not put off checking and repacking your bearings as it will save you a lot of trouble down the road. It may be messy but is well worth it, time well spent. Joe spells it out for you step by step making it all very easy. more

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7/23/2008 3:52:04 AM

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