Bearing Oil / Grease gone ... thoughts?

I noticed my trailer wheel was missing the normal "BLACK" cap that I normally see when I pulled my boat out last weekend. I quickly realized it wasnt a cap BUT was a seal for a bearing and it WAS once filled with some type of oil or grease.

Obviously the bearing is there, but this is no lubrication anymore...

How many miles can I run on this thing with it being bare. I usually check things like this, so it just happened. I am about 30 miles away from the nearest dealership AND I need to get this bad boy winterized SOON!

The black cap just sounds like the dust protector for bearing buddy's. Do you have grease filled bearings or oil bath? IF you drove on the (grease) bearings for any length of time moving over about 15 mph the wehel hub would haev been scorching hot w/o any grease? Is there grease all over your wheel? IF it's oil bath you coudl run a little more, not reccomended, but I have done it. What will happen is your bearings will heat up and melt eventually scoring your spindle. The the spindle gets runined you will never be able to resurface it to allow for new bearing to roll smoothly. IT would have to be replaced.


By your description you just lost the cap. nothing else is wrong. the grease should seap out a little but most of it is not visible with the cap just off. Do you see a grease zerk?

I think Adam si right about it just being your cap. If for any reason you dont think you have grease in your bearing you should not move the boat at all. I have ruined a spindel and it SUCKS.

If there's a grease zerk in the middle, you have Bearing Buddys. Push down on the edges of the cover the zerk is screwed into. If the cover moves when you push on it, there is grease under it and nothing to worry about.

Those covers are of questionable value anyway - they keep dirt out, but hold water in... What is worse?

This is on a Boatmate trailer (Malibu) ....

This is like a cavity that stores oil and its now empty - not really a cap.

It sounds like you have an oil hub not a bearing buddy. I am not too familier with that setup but I think you need to refill it with oil and put a cap on it before you move it.

My boat mate has oil bath bearings. It would be really hard to lose oil out of those unless the seal (rubber gasket) cracked, broke. The seal is on the backside of the hub. There is a fill hole on top you can put more oil in. If there is no grease/oil on your bearings yoru wheel would be covered in it. Does your wheel have grease'oil on it? if you need a seal they can be replaced with an automotvie seal. do you have a picture of what type hub you have?

http://www.shorelandr.com/pages/l_press/hubpr.pdf#search='oil%20bath%20hubs'

the second pic is an oil bath hub

I think it is "oil hub" -- I'm going to look at my owners manual and if you guys dont mind, I might snap some photos and see what we can put together. I dont want to damage anything! It's too late in the season to start blowing money on trailers! hahaha.

adam, If i had to imagine what it would look like, that is a pretty good example. The only wierd thing -- WHERE'D the oil go?!? I do see it anywhere! Not in my storage unit, tired, wheel... ?!?! Oh well, I didnt look on the backside, I'll check it out and post some pics later. I appreciiate teh help guys.

My 04 boatmate trailer for my supra did not come with any dust covers..aka "Black caps". Pictures would help. Look on the backside...I had a seal fail and only reason I noticed it was b/c of a puddle of oil. It's possible the rear seal failed, all the oil ran down the backside of the rim. It happened to me.