This Old Trailer: Electric Trailer Brake Installation Part 1- Video
Alright, today on This Old Trailer, what we are going to do is install electric brakes. Right now this trailer does not have any brakes on it whatsoever, so it has two drag axles. So the first thing that we need to do is go ahead and take off the rear wheels. And then we will go ahead and take off the hubs. At this point we will take off the dust cap on our axle. And basically what you want to do is on this particular unit we have an E-Z Lube cap, so it fits kind of tight. It is a good idea to go ahead and rotate the hub and lightly strike it and then I will just back it off with a screw driver behind the flange. And then pry it off. Alright, let us wipe off the excess grease on the end of the spindle here and we will get to our tang washer. And we will release it so we can back off the castle nut. Alright, we have it cleaned up a little bit. Now right here, this is the tab I was talking about. That is our tang washer. Take this. Push it down flat to the flat spot on our spindle and then you can take the castle nut off. 1:07 more
2/26/2010 6:34:05 AM
Cleaning and Replacing Hubs and Bearings- Video
First off we will go ahead and take off the dust cap. In this case it is a bearing buddy. Next is taking out the locking pin, the cotter pin that goes through the center here. Once you have that lock washer off, just go ahead and take off the nut and pull your whole hub off. Now we are going to go ahead and inspect the hub and bearings here. more
9/24/2009 3:18:17 PM
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
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
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
7/23/2008 7:19:54 AM
Trailer Hub Inspection Demonstration- Video
We get many many questions on how to make sure trailer hubs and brakes are safe for travel. Here Joe addresses some of those questions demonstrating how to thoroughly inspect the hubs, breaks and bearings. I know many of us take the performance of these assemblies for granted but if you are planning a long trip or just make short trips around town you should be aware of their condition. I like to say it is time well spent when it avoids break downs on the side of the highway. more
7/22/2008 5:54:13 PM
Trailer Brakes and Wiring Installation- Video
Today we are going to show you how to install brakes on a trailer that does not have existing brakes. It is actually pretty easy to do. It is just very time consuming. There are a couple of things you want to look out for before you start. You want to step behind your trailer, and look behind the existing hub you have. Make sure you have a flange like this on the axle. It is this 4-bolt flange on here; if you have that on your axle you are pretty much home free. This size flange has four bolts. You will see it on 3,500- pound axles like we have here. You also see it on 2,000- pound axles. On a 3,500 -pound one you would probably use a 10- inch drum and on a lighter axle, 2,000 pounds, you probably would use a 7- inch size. Also you notice we have the hub missing. We have to take that off because the hub and drum assembly is all in one piece. It is not like the automotive application. You have to take off the old hub, discard it, and start off fresh. more
7/22/2008 12:53:10 PM
