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Posts: 103
| The back side of one of the hubs on my ‘97 Ranger trailer has a pretty good leak. Wondering if I should fix the leak, put in new Cool Hubs, or switch to grease. Or? Recommendations?
Thx
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Posts: 3480
Location: Elk River, Minnesota | Hiya,
If you get the information about your hubs, you should be able to do a rebuild of the hub and replace the back seal without needing to change to grease.
The ranger hub as you know is an oil bath hub, so the rear seal actually is a double lipped seal. When you replace it, the metal portion of the seal (butts up to the hub) should be coated with some sort of RTV silicone that is impervious to oil or solvents before you tap it into the hub.
Be sure to thoroughly clean the surfaces of the hub where the bearing seal rests, the spindle, and the surfaces for the front cap as well.
When you reinstall the hub, tighten down as you normally would with greased bearings to set the bearings, then loosen/retighten the castle nut to eliminate any freeplay. rtv silicone on the cap before install, then fill up the hub with oil. From there, you should be good to go.
Steve | |
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Posts: 17
| Identifying the leak is the most important. I'm in a similar situation. I'm currently replacing all 4 hubs and an axle. The previous owner had a hub blow up on him. He just put grease hubs on the front axle and called it good. The spindle is severely damaged and waiting to blow up again. Since mine is a weld on spindle, its easier to replace the axle (New axle is 220 + 120 to ship from Ranger).
When you pull the hub you need to check the wear ring on the spindle. If there are no grooves, you may just need a new seal. There will be a number on the seal. You can cross reference it online. Its also a good idea to check all the o rings in the hub protector and clean that out.
New hubs from Ranger are 160 for brake hubs or ~130 for idler hubs. That includes all new bearings, seals, oil bath parts. Better than any price online. Made sense to me to buy all new hubs. My trailer is almost 20 years old and I'd rather do it in my garage than on the side of the road. Here are some links I've found helpful. If you call ranger have your trailer VIN handy. If you have a digital caliper, take some measurements of the hub and spindle. Your bearings should also have a number on them.
http://www.waymires.com/catalog/newcatatest/catalogprod/ufp_product...
http://www.waymires.com/support_documents/ufp/waymire_ufp_catalog.p...
http://www.bbcboards.net/showthread.php?t=743758
http://www.venturetrailers.com/pdfs/WearSleeve.pdf
https://www.easternmarine.com/downloads/dl/file/id/7527/instructions...
Edited by benvcarlson 3/21/2019 7:19 AM
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Posts: 103
| Wow thx for the detailed help guys I really appreciate it. | |
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Posts: 8782
| I'm not trying to hijack your thread, but I have the same issue. Noticed a leak on both sides about halfway back (400 miles) from Canada. Can't see anything through the glass, even with a flashlight, Best I can tell the oil bath hubs are either full, and the leak is minor (i.e. I can take it somewhere) or they're bone dry and it's a ticking time bomb.
Now that I see here that you can just order the whole hub assembly for half the cost of a reel, I'm back to thinking it's an easy DIY project. Lacking a set of calipers and a torque wrench, though, I'm thinking doing it myself would be easily as expensive as having someone else do it. I'd have some cool tools to show for it, and it might be a good thing to know how to take these things apart, fix them, and put them back together in case I wind up on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere.
It's not the first time in my life, but it's one of the few where I actually have no idea what to do... | |
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Posts: 17
| There are lots of videos that are very helpful. Its not a very difficult job, just time consuming, messy and tedious. Take you time and you will be just fine. Look at some of the links I provided above, lots of info to get you started. Doing it yourself is the best way to learn and it will come in handy sometime or another. Its a lot easier to work on your trailer in the garage than on the side of the road in the dark. Feel free to PM with questions | |
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Ranger Cool Hubs leaking...