leaking wheel seals

Anybody have problems with wheel seals leaking on their trailers with 10,000 lbs axles. I can"t keep mine from leaking ever 2 or 3 months i have one or two leaking, and the seals are expensive, these or dexter axles, any help is appreciated.

Make sure the vent holes in the rubber fill plugs are open. If they are stopped up they will build up pressure and cause seals to leak.

Like welding man said check the vent if your not sure push a small sewing pin threw the hole to remove any debri or another possibility is that the race the seals ride on is being damaged by rust or the seal wasn't seated upon instalation and it's wobling in the axle which would stretch it over time until it leaked

They could be leaking because of a bad sealing surface, either due to rust and pitting or a groove from the lip of the seal. If this is the problem, Stemco probably makes a seal for that axle with a wear ring.

Another possiblity is that your bearings are bad or they are not being torqued to the right amount. When you tighthen the hub nut, make sure you are spinning the hub while you"re tightening the nut and then tighten the nut until you can"t spin the hub anymore. Back off a full turn and retighten until there is a slight drag when you spin the hub. After reinstalling the wheel, check for play in the bearings. If there is any tighten the nut a little more. Also, make sure you check the bearings after the first hundred or so miles.

Something else you may want to look into is a set of ProTorq nuts instead of of the double nut deal. I don"t know if they make them that small, but at work they are on every trailer and the steer axles of every truck.

i had replaced the bearings so i knew that should not be the problem, i looked at the plugs and as you said one never had a hole and the others were pretty clogged so i pushed the point of test light through them they close back up but i bet you are right never thought about needing a vent, thanks for the help.

Well the one thing that NOBODY touched on here as to WHY wheel seal leak is BECAUSE the bearings are to loose . If ya want a wheel seal to not leak you can not tighten up the nut and then BACK IT OFF . Been down this road way more times then i want to think about . I have a 28 foot tandem dual gooseneck with the early 10000 dexters under it and when i bought it used from a supposely knolageable dealer was are ya sure that you want this trailer as the reason the other guy traded it in is that he could not keep wheel seals in it . Got him to throw in 4 new seals and drug it home and went to work on it and yep all fur were leaking everything on the brakes were coated well with 90 weight no rust problems here . First think i found ws the wheels were all loose and wobbled and this was knocking out the C/R seals . Cleaned up everything and started back together and once i got the hubs on and SET i then found out why you could not get them set correctly as the cotter pin hole no matter how ya did it was either way to tight or way to loose . I set my axle preload at 45 ft.lbs. and to get this preload i ended up using shim washer between the bearing washer and the axle nut . Then install the cotter pin . Now i have had people tell me that OH your going to burn up your bearing that way . HUM a pinion bearing in a rear end get torqued to 300+ ft. lbs of torque and for some reason they do not burn up and they have a rolling preload of 27-35 inch. lbs. of rolling preload . Same thing with the Ford axels on there one ton duallys ya could not keep a wheel seal in one of them by there method of installation As you had to use this specail scoket and tighten them up to 55 ft. lbs. thenBACK off the nut so many clicks and that number has excapped me over the years . As her again i bought a used 88 Ford F350 4X4 cab and chassie with both rear wheel seals out of it and after hearing and reading HOW THEY DID it and hearing from the guys that worked onthem everyday as to how they were always replacing wheel seal I tore into it and did it the old way well in 287000 miles never put another wheel seal in it Same with the trailer pulled that trailer for better part of the 287000 miles that were put on the truck and never had another seal go out .

The reason pinion bearings survive 300 ft lbs is the pressure is on the inner races. There is a crush sleeve between them that is taking all of that pressure. Remove the sleeve and with that kind of pressure on them, the rollers would press grooves in the outer races and would fail in short order.

AH no no back in the old days there was not crush spacer just shims . The use of crush spaces came about way later as to the excate date that i can not tell ya but son i have been doing rearends since way back in the sixtys from a 9 inch ford on up thru big equipment . And been installed axel seals many years with out any bearing problems or seal failures . Ran a semi dump for many years and hauled more net weight then truck haul gross today and i have always set bearing PRELOAD and never had a bearing failure . When i bought my gooseneck every wheel seal was leaking on it and at 38 bucks a seal ya sure don't want to be replacing them vary often , plus 110 buck per side for the brake lining here again ya don't want to scrap them out . That trailer has been on the road now since 1990 and the seals that were put in just after i bought it are still in there with no leaks . So when ya have the experience that i have in wrench twisten and the paper work to go along with it then we will talk about it . . I give good FREE advice to people that ask questions . Since i started driving way back in 62 i have worked on just about anything that either moved on wheels or tracks . Now back to CRUSH SPACERS in a rear end they are junk i have worked on more then my fair share of 10 .25 Ford Sterling rear ends because of CRUSHER spacer failure . They work OK when going foward BUT when you stress them tryen to back up a load guess what the colapes and my cure for this was you guessed it old fashioned SHIMSand torque the pinion bearing down to 380 Ft.LBS on a ford 10.25 sterling and get between 27-32 inch lbs of rolling prelaod .

Ok, so remove the spacer and/or shims (re read my post above) between the bearings and see what happens. You answered my question. You put something BETWEEN the 2 bearings on the shaft. No shims or crush sleeve, with 300ftlbs, on bearings alone, WILL FAIL in short order. If you've been building 9" Fords, they use crush sleeves. Never seen one that didn't have one. I'll say the same, When you've been twisting wrenches as long as I have and have the paperwork to go along with it then we will talk about it. Running a semi dumps got nothing to do with setting up gears.

We did away with the crush spaces in the 9 inch and used shims along with a steel collar as long as ya have a rolling preload it does work . And torquen a wheel bearing to 45 Ft lbs will not BURN it up. Working on My coal bucket does have something to do with wheel bearing rear ends and seal . as this was a normal repair on the trailers as wheel seals were always failing because everybody had this idea to tighten them up tight and then back off a quarter turn and in a week ya had grease running out of the drum and brake lining was soaked with 90 weight . Started to torque them to 45 ft. lbs and oh guess what no more seal leaks and until ya had the brakes wore out that wheel never leaked . Spend 14-16 hours behind the wheel working all day and come home and find that ya had a seal leaking ment that ya did not go to the house till the truck was ready to go at 3 in the morning weather you were or not . But anyhow what i do works for me and all that i work on . So you do it your way and i'll just keep doing it mine .