A curly question

[shakey55]

I recently bought a new boat (to me) and it is on a Tinka Trailer.

I decided to renew everything on the trailer, bearings, hubs, mechanical override brakes.

I replaced everything on the starboard side and not a problem, everything went on as it should.

Now the problem.

On the port side when putting everything together I could not do the castle nut up far enough to put the cotter pin in. It only missed by about half the thickness of the cotter pin.

I thought and tried everything and no luck. I talked to my local mechanic and he could not see what was wrong, so he suggests that I drill another hole in the axle. When I went to do this I found that the castle nut was softer than the axle so I extended the groove in the nut to accommodate the cotter pin.

So I take the boat to Botany Bay about 50 kms from my place. When I get there the bearing buddy on the port side has gone.

Got the boat home and took everything apart again and fitted it dry ( no grease ) and it fitted allowing me to put the cotter pin in any of the grooves. I also checked to see if the cones had been rammed home correctly, and they appear to be.

I was happy, everything back to normal. Pack with grease and bloody hell can't do castle nut up to get cotter pin in, other than the extended groove in castle nut.

Today I drive down the coast and after about 100 kms, bang a flat tyre on the port side. Get out and have a look, immediately see that the bearing buddy has gone again.

As I change the wheel I check to see if there is any wobble in the wheel and NONE.

It's a long shot, but has anyone heard of something like this before, what is the problem and why am I loosing bearing buddy on that side.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[station-rat]

How tight are the bearing buddy's when you fit them? If every thing fits correctly before you grease them then the grease must be stopping the bearings from seating in the cups.

[tunaticer]

It is not the bearing cones giving you the problem, it is the bearing inner not sitting square on the axle. You can still adjust the bearing up but be shy of nut depth. One day the bearing will click into where it should be and your wheel will wobble all over the place.

As for bearing buddies coming off, I had that problem a lot......I drilled and tapped an M3 stainless steel socket head screw in the lip of the hub and the bearing buddy installed, 3 per buddy. Haven't had a ounce of trouble in the last 15 yrs since doing that.

[Berger4]

I had the same problem ages ago. I put one set of bearings in and it was all good and really easy. I put the other side in and the hole on the castle nut just would go in unless i really tightened it. Same as you though it might be the cones etc, so I drove around the block a couple of times thinking it might loosen up. The bearing cap only got really hot.

Any way long story short I pulled the bearings out and just tried fitting the old ones I still had lying around, they fitted perfectly. I then checked the markings on the bearings and they where different. I then went trough the bin and checked the packet they came in and they and the packet was right. I figured some how the wrong bearing got put in the wrong packet. Anyway took them back to the shop and swapped them over, put the new set in and it was all good. Can't remember if they where ford or holden bearing as it was a couple of boats ago. Not saying that this is the problem but may be worth checking.

[Noelm]

Bearing buddies coming off is common, especially if you have the cheap Chinese ones, when fitting them, you MUST clean around the surface in the hub with thinners or something, because a small amount of grease will not let the buddy seat properly, and it will just fall off, the cheap buddies are next to useless when fitting a second time, kind of OK when new, but once removed, the rubbish thin tin they are made of, just won't hold again. OH, and the bearing cup/cone is not fully seated in the hub.

[Lovey80]

I've had that problem before and for the life of me I couldn't figure out why the nut wouldn't do up tight enough. It is either one of two things mentioned above. Either it isn't seating properly when you put the hub on (not quite plumb) or there is too much grease packed in there from the start. Try getting the nut to go tight, back it off just a tad and spend a good few minutes spinning the wheel in both directions. Of then the grease will find a hole to fill and the nut can be done up just a little bit more each time. I'd never re-drill the stub axle. If it wont go home all the way something is wrong.

After every bearing/wheel change do a short test run of only a few Km's at low speed and recheck the nuts etc. You'll find once it warms up it will go to where it needs to be.

[scottar]

The only thing to conclusively come from this so far Shakey - is that you need a new mechanic. The guy's a peanut IMO. It could have put you in a very dangerous situation.

[ranmar850]

A trick I have learnt when tightening up bearings to the correct tension. You know that all castellated nuts are not identical? if you have one which is too loose on one slot, then too tight on the next slot, what can you do? You should have some axle nuts among your spare bits--try another one and see if the pin will go through with the correct tension. Odds are it will. Du to manufacturing processes, the relationship of slot position to thread starting ramp will quite possibly be different. This works for me, might have to try a couple of nuts, but you will find one that sits just where you want.