how often do you guys change out your bearings for your trailers? its been about 2.5years now since i got my boat. i have had buddy bearings on from the beginning. they stay greased up and don't seem to have any slack either. just wondering if there's usually a life to hub bearings? people have always told me that the buddy bearings will keep grease flowing through the bearings so as long as that stays full im good to go ???????

Take an hour and do it.

Save you tons of grief at 4am stuck on the side of the road in the middle of winter.

I agree with River in that I rather do a little prevention and change and inspect stuff under my own terms. I rather do it in my shop witrh lighting and a fan blowing on me. When it goes out it will be at high noon in August with 100 degree heat, or it will be at night coming home from a hunt in the pouring rain on an overpass, or something like that.

My trailer is only a year old, and does have Buddy bearings which I use and like. I wanted to open everything up and see what it looked like. Everything was ok, but it had cheap seals and Chinese bearings. Cleaned the bearings and repacked them and put them in a ziploc behind my truck seat. Those may be a lifesaver one day. Replaced them with Timken bearings, and Chicago Rawhide seals.

From here on out, I will inspect and repack the bearings once a year, and replace the seals. With a yearly repack job and change of seals the bearings should last you your life time.

Buddy bearings or not, water still will enter the grease and that will cause contamination and accelerated wear. Bearings, races, and seals are a quick change on a boat trailer hub. The least you should do is pull it apart and clean the old bearings and inspect for pitting, discoloration, or rust. If the bearings are fine, repack with fresh greason the innher and out bearing. Pack the hub cavity between the 2 bearing races with grease, replace the inner wheel seal, instally buddy bearings and your good to go. Simple things will leave you stranded at times!

At my house,

Wet trailers get once per year service

Dry trailers every two or three

ya it could be fine for 5 more years but u never no when it going to happen . like they said take the time and change them to save the greef in the long run....

i saw some trailer bearings that didnt take grease but a heavy wieght oil instead... dunno if dey n e good doe what yall think

dats what i was thinkn or if u got a leaky seal n launch ya boat n get water in dat bitch

so i pulled them out tonight and bearings looked fine and hub were rusted though. pulled out the old grease and packed in some new grease. the grease did have a odd smell to it so i figured it was burnt so i changed it out. i didnt clean out all the old grease though.

sheet mine aint that bad!!!! i probably will have to replace the seals soon on the back though im gettign a little bit of leakage while driving. splatter of grease or two

You didnt pack in the inner bearing? The inner bearing is behind the seal on the back of the hub. Usually to pack it you need to remove the seal whick usually screws it up. JW man because if you toock the trouble to pack the outer you had a few more minutes to get that inner one done.
Remember if oil/greas is coming out of a seal water will go in. Especially once the hub is hot from driving then the cool water dunk will suck the water right in!

yeah i got seals to repalce on the back and im going to pull the old ones off b/c they looked pretty rusted. im going to redo it and put the new seals and repack all of it one night this week.

but to answer your ? i didnt pull off the back seals at all.

Yeah I figured so. At least your trying to keep up with maintenance, and not bithching when your hubs fall off and bitch about the trailer being junk.

Anybody have a link for step by step to repack hubs/bearings?

yes indeed there are links for everything lol