I have a question about wheel bearing grease.

Our boat trailer has blue wheel bearing grease. I would like to know is all blue grease compatible regardless of manufacturer. I'm trying to avoid pulling the hubs, cleaning everything and repacking the bearings. I would rather just add some grease to the bearing buddies.

IMHO, if you don't know what's already in them I'd start from scratch and repack. This is what I use on the boat trailer.
http://shop.evinrude.com/product/77...Pressure_Wheel_Bearing_Grease_14_oz_Cartridge

Woody said:

IMHO, if you don't know what's already in them I'd start from scratch and repack. This is what I use on the boat trailer.
http://shop.evinrude.com/product/77...Pressure_Wheel_Bearing_Grease_14_oz_Cartridge

Click to expand...

+1......you don't want to take a chance with trailer wheel bearings....it is no fun having a seized wheel bearing on a trailer when you are far away from home on a hot summer's day and the family is inside the truck anxious to get to the lake.....

take the couple hours it will take to remove the bearings and soak them in gasoline...the gas will quickly dissolve the grease and then dry quickly.....then repack the bearings with marine wheel bearing grease and fill the bearing buddies up until the grease fitting starts to move out....you can use a repacking tool like this to make the bearing packing easy and less messy...



https://www.amazon.com/Lisle-65250-...24235605&sr=1-5&keywords=wheel+bearing+packer

you will be glad you did for the piece of mind this will give you.....

I trailered boats for several years and I always kept the trailers in top condition to avoid break downs on the side of the road....

cliff

If its blue, it probably is marine wheel bearing grease. Myself, I would just pump more in.

I’m not a big fan of bearing buddies because they just push grease against the outside bearing and do nothing to force grease through the inside bearing. If you have e-z lube axles. You can just pull the bearing buddies off and grease the bearings through the zerk at the end of the axle. If not I would pull the hub off and thoroughly clean and repack the bearings. I do this every year. I also carry an extra greased hub with me in case I have a bearing failure.

Color of grease is irrelevant. 99% percent of grease is compatible these days. Polyurea and Krytox is not compatible with anything. Pretty sure you don't have Krytox its $500 for a tube used in oxygen service. Polyurea used in electric motors not readily available.

I contacted Shortland'r and found out they use over based calcium sulfonate grease from the factory. I can get Lucas OBCS marine grease at Lowe's for about $7.00 for a 14oz. tube. I decided I will just go ahead and pull the hubs, clean and inspect everything regrets it and put it back together, that way I know exactly where I'm at since we did buy it used from the original owner. Just have to find time to do it.

Here's a follow up on Over Based Calcium Sulfonate grease. Lucas oil is the only one I found making it for consumers. I went to buy some at Lowe's and the Lucas Marine grease they had, was Lithium complex, checked amazon, and eBay, thats what they had to. Contacted Lucas and found out they are just in the process of switching to OBCS marine grease and old stock has not been depleted yet. They were kind enough to send me 2 - 14oz sticks for free which will last me for quite awhile. By the time I need more it will definitely be in the stores.

Let me say before I go further, I think Amsoil makes very good products, it's more convenient for me to walk in and buy Lucas marine grease in the stores, instead of buying Amsoil Water Resistant grease online and waiting for delivery, it's also quite a bit cheaper to buy Lucas in the stores, than Amsoil online because it's considered a hazardous material and shipping is more expensive.

I called Amsoil to find out if their grease was Over Based Calcium Sulfonate, The answer I got was it is a Calcium Sulfonate Complex grease. I asked twice during the conversation. So the answer is no, even though he didn't come right out and say it. What the difference between An Over Based Calcium Sulfonate Grease and A Calcium Sulfonate Complex grease is I haven't really been able to find out. I will add here that if I could get Amsoil Water Resistant grease in the stores I would not hesitate to buy it because I don't think theres that much difference between the 2 types of grease. I believe, and I may be wrong on this, that Over Based Calcium Sulfonate grease is actually a type of Calcium Sulfonate complex grease.

It's possible you could be over thinking this. It's a boat trailer

Maybe I am, Maybe not, It's a boat trailer with a $20,000 boat sitting on it. I just want to make sure I'm using the grease Shortland'r recommends. I don't want bearing failure due to using the wrong grease, they recommend it for a reason. I found it hard to find that grease and thought the information I gathered might be useful to others.

I think properly maintaining your bearings is more important than worrying about what type of grease you use. I use cheap marine grade wheel bearing grease. And pull my 8,000 lb boat a couple thousand miles every year. The only time I had a bearing failure was when a dust cap fell off.

Shoreland'r makes the trailer not the bearings. BCA, Timkin it's all the same stuff made out of the same material.

i always cleaned and repacked the trailer wheel bearings every year at the start of the boating season as a preventative measure....if you do that the regular marine bearing grease you can find just about every where will work just fine....no need to buy and use expensive bearing grease....

but if using a special grease gives you piece of mind, well its your boat and trailer and you can do whatever you want...

but thanks for the research and info about the bearing grease....its always good to learn new stuff....

good luck....

cliff

Sorry I haven't been back on here in awhile. My work schedule has been insane. I did find the grease shorelander recommends in their owners manual, and pulled the bearings cleaned and packed them, we are ready to go. Just to help everyone else out, from looking into the whole proper grease issue. I have learned there is no grease color code, any grease can be any color. Just because it's blue does not insure it's marine grease. Absolutely no one involved in the grease and oil recommends mixing greases, even independent testing companies warn against it. They especially warn against mixing grease by different manufacturers, even though the grease may be the same base, the additives may be different for different brands and could degrade performance. Hope this is helpful.