Swivel hub wheelbearing replacement mods greese nipples marine grease

[97_gq_lwb]

I am in the process of doing the swivel hubs and wheelbearings.
As i like driving through deep muddy water holes i am wondering if anyone had done any mods.
Like grease nipples or marine bearing grease anything to help keep the water out of them in the future.
Or make it easier to pump grease into them and keep them full so the water has nowhere to go.

[Silver]

Thats a fascinating question. I have made no mods, and read about no mods.

Sorry for the long post, didn't have time for a short one.

However the short version is probably maintain the seals, drop a swivel hub cap bolt to check for water, replace the free wheeling hub with a fixed cap, or pressurise the diff and I am not sure about the last two.

Looking first at the swivel hub, there are the swivel hub bearings, and then the space occupied by the CV.

The swivel hub bearings have that outer plate and the shims, then on the other side of a smallish space, there is supposed to be a plate with a gasket. I have yet to work out if that plate is to stop the two lubricants mixing and/or to keep water out of the CV space, or CV oil and Diff oil (not that there should be any :-) ) out of the swivel hub bearings.

A common recommendation after playing in water is to remove one of those 4 bolts that hold the swivel hub bearing cap on, and see if water runs out.

Maybe there is scope for a very fine coating of some sort of sealant on the shims and in the bolt holes?

The old MQ had grease nipples top and bottom, but not the Mav, which has fewer lube points all round, even taking the coil springs into account.


Turning to the space where the CV runs - I think that is supposed to have a particular kind of grease which is not the same as the swivel hubs or the wheel bearings. Inboard there is a seal to keep the diff oil out. If you installed a grease nipple, I dunno how much you'd have to pump in to make life better for the CV. A lot, I think. And then I don't know what would happen if that space filled up with grease as there is a seal on either side of it. Nothing nice, I guess. It can only get water probably from the swivel hub caps, or in via the free wheeling hubs or most likely of all, from that big wiper seal at the back. Apart from keeping them maintained - there is only one other possibility that I can think of, is to pressurise the diff.

Wheel bearings - Others may have a different experience, and certainly will have more experience, but I think most of the water that gets in here comes via the free wheeling hub. Mine has basically no seal on the selection knob. There may be other designs that do. I would be tempted, if playing in mud a lot, to replace that with a non free wheeling hub cap - whatever it is called. However it may be that doing this just increases the chance of water coming in elsewhere as the hub cools after its dunking, and the air inside shrinks. On the lube front, they do make a water resistant grease for trailer wheel bearings. I don't know what trade offs there are in using it here.

In theory the chance of water getting sucked in is to stop and let everything cool so that the shrinking air inside the spaces only has more air to suck in, not water. Thinking about what I do when changing engine oil - oooh, hot hot hot burnie fingers, should have waited - I dunno if I am patient enough to wait that long :-)

Pressurising the diff. Some install an air horn pump - not one from a truck, but the smaller one about the same as a 375 ml can. They run this to all the breathers. I don't know how this air gets past the axle oil seal into the CV space, nor from there out into the hub. Again, I don't know what happens if the pump is left running by accident. I have been informed nothing bad happens :-) Bob over the road is an old school off roader and swears by this, including giving the dissy the treatment as well.

Over to the experts :-)

[97_gq_lwb]

Their is an axel seal between the diff oil and cv hub section they were fine i even left the breather hose dangling on sunday when i went out and no signs of water in the diff oil.
The cv hub area is rather large and the cv takes a different grease wich could get quite costly to fill the area but might still be worth it .

I will have to have a closer look at the hub locking mech but i am thinking maybe a nipple in the wheelbearing section will push the grease out of it when full.
I have bearing buddies on my boat trailer wich are basically a spring loaded grease packer you pump the grease in via a nipple and fill the hubs up completely .

[Silver]

I would investigate whether completely filling either the CV space or the wheel bearing space can cause a problem.

Not saying that it will, nor can I really see how, in a way, but if it does??

As you say, that is exactly what bearing buddies do - although the excess can easily get out past the seal.

[97_gq_lwb]

Yeah i am thinking if the hub lock has no seal it would push the excess grease out of it rather then into the cv cavity through the seal.

[MudRunnerTD]

If all of the seals are new then it will be Water Tight. No nipple will be required.

The CV and the Wheel Bearing actually use a different grease but you can get an Extreme Grease that i use for both. The hub where the CV goes does not need to be packed full of grease in fact air is your friend to help keep it cool. If you pack it full of grease when it gets hot the grease will thin out and blow your seals from behind. Your grease seals are a 1 way seal and more designed to keep stuff out than keep stuff in ;)

unlike the boat wheel bearings the front of a Nissan is very well protected and encased and water tight, a boat trailer is not and needs the cap savers to try and help with that.

Pack the CV in Extreme Temp grease. Pack the Wheel bearing with Extreme Temp grease. Bed in. re tension to factory spec. Drive on. ;)

[97_gq_lwb]

Wich brand do you use ? all i can seem to find is high temp wheelbearing grease

[97_gq_lwb]

Is it NLGI 2 http://www.caltex.com.au/PRODUCTSANDSERVICES/Pages/ProductDescription.aspx?ID=1802

sounds like it would do the job

I also found nulon do something similar called extreme
http://www.nulon.com.au/products/Specialty_Products/Extreme_Performance_Grease/#.UCMGdqCNfRQ

[MudRunnerTD]

Yep I use the Nulon at the moment and have been happy with it.

[nissannewby]

Make sure you throw some sealant on your hub before reinstalling as this can allow water if not correctly sealed. Also seal that works on your knuckle will not seal correctly if there is any pitting or marls on the ball, this will be where most water will make its way in.

As for your grease I wouldnt use anything other than an LMM grease for the CV its desgined so it wont fling out at speed cos there is nothing stopping this from happpening as your cv isnt sealed (like the joint itself). So at higher speeds the grease can just fling out into the housing.

Your wheel bearings a high temp grease as you have stated will be fine.

[97_gq_lwb]

I was thinking about giving my balls a sand down and a coat of paint lol.

[nissannewby]

It would help anything to give them a nice smooth finish haha. Even with good surfaces and seals try to avoid sitting in water for prolonged periods. As with some lip type seals there is no Spring on the knuckle seals to help them so any sustained pressure by water will allow a small amount of ingress.

[Robo]

When I recently rebuilt my hubs etc there had previously been some water, so as a precaution I tipped about 10mls 140w oil into swivel housing to allow some added protection for lower bearing.
Oil simply slowly leaked out around ball wiper seal, so that said filling hub with grease would probably be a waste of time, effort.
Come to think of it, if you leave a grease gun for to long the oil in the grease leaks out of the gun so that would probably happen in this instance to.

[97_gq_lwb]

Was just looking at the cv section in the manual and it states for the cv .
Molybdenum disulphide lithium soap base, NLGl No. 2

[Robo]

I was thinking about giving my balls a sand down and a coat of paint lol.

Lucky were all straight , well most of us.
surprised you haven't had a offer to help sand em down !!.

[97_gq_lwb]

What are you thinking robo
This is a pic of my nice shiny freshly painted balls or should i say trunion socket lol
I hit them with some emery paper and removed any imperfections and surface rust.

http://i567.photobucket.com/albums/ss117/it250k/patrol076.jpg

[Robo]

Nice black balls.

Come to think of it, the Mercury / Quicksilver black paint would do a really nice job of these as it is extremely hard wearing to.
but not good to breath the over-spray from this paint one little bit.

[Silver]

The aftermarket free wheeling hubs on my Mav would not work if pumped up with grease from further into the hub I think. From memory it is meant to be smeared with grease, and not filled.

The grease would tend to hold the splined sleeve from dropping in.

Not sure about other FWH designs.

[taslucas]

Yeah it is recommended to only smear the internals of the hub not fill it with grease. Ad silver said, it stops the hub working properly

[97_gq_lwb]

Yeah i just ended up useing the nulon extreme grease for the lot as it had the same rating as the cv grease about half a tub done one side everything cv king pin wheelbearings.
I will wait until my diff locker gets here before i do the other side and pull the one i just done apart again lol

[Robo]

Getting back to the grease nipple question,
you would need to remove the welsh plug type seal nearest swivels so grease can flow through the bearings.
and the injection point near bearings needs to allow grease to get by the bearings own seal.
this possibly be a tricky angle to drill, lots of careful measuring to obtain drilling point and angle.

[Rustyboner81]

dont know what peoples views on terrain tamer gear, but theres a youtube clip on cv joints, talking about their new terrain tamer cv joint can have a grease nipple put in the end of it.
could be good, only really for the cv itself. would have to remove hub first obviously but would be quick if you didnt want to pull it all apart.
i should be doing my swivel hub in a couple of weeks, hopefully lokka too.

[Robo]

good idea for greasing but you have to do it regularly, as the small dia, long grease passage could dry out and plug hole the heat see's to that.
Heat allows the oils to readily flow out through the passage and can potentially leave the carrier behind to plug up passage.
It's only a lack of maintance that is the problem here.
As long as the CV are made from a metal stronger to make up for the hollow.
Can't see t/tamer short cutting on that so things should be fine.

But give em time and cheap Chinese e/bay specials will turn up with sus metals.