When did Barth start putting splash bearings on the front axel of the motor homes.
lenny

Do you mean oil-bath bearings?

yes oil bath

This question will be hard to answer as there were many different chassis combinations in a Barth.

I'm sure most of the gas jobs were probably grease packed.

Maybe what you ought to do is solicit a little query... The question, what type of front bearing setup do you have? "Oil Bath" or "Grease Packed", might get you a better response.

I'll start... I know my 1991 Oshkosh Chassis is "Grease Packed"

I'm pretty sure that all of the MCC Chassis were grease packed too, but I don't know for sure. Keep in mind, someone could have changed it over from one type to another.

I've seen some trucks with one style on one side and another style on the other side. This is usually done to mask another type of problem.

Grease doesn't run out like oil does, so sometimes (in an emergency) you are forced to grease pack a front wheel bearing, or trailer wheel bearing, to cover up a faulty wheel seal wear surface.

This is done as a temp repair until a new steer spindle comes in, or you get an axle surgeon to weld a new spindle, wear surface or spider onto an axle tube.

Why do you ask? Do you have one of each? What are you trying to figure out?

I had oil or grease on my brand new right front tire after driving the last time. How do I find out if my 89 Deere 32' chassis front wheel bearing is oil or grease?

quote:

Originally posted by Jack:
How do I find out if my 89 Deere 32' chassis front wheel bearing is oil or grease?

Oil filled will have a hub cap oiler so you can add fluid

Grease packed will have a covered cap and maybe a grease fitting built into the cap.

Grease Cap


Oil Bath Cap


I have seen grease filled oil bath caps but only as an emergency job.

My Breakaway Spartan Chassis has a Dana 60 front axle, with grease-packed bearings.

The choice of lube process would be the choice of the axle builder, in most cases.

My '93-'94 Breakaway has a Westport axle and has oil bath lubrication.

Since i have a bus and not a Barth this may or may not be relevant. I have the oil bath bearings. One of them started to leak so i added Lucas Hub Oil to it, and it did slow, but not stop the leaking until i could have new bearings and seals installed. One of the problems we all face is not running often enough to keep the seals from drying out. The hub oil is tacky and so stays on the seals and the bearing and is supposed to keep them from drying out. Several bus folks have found that after a long time sitting, their bearings have rust forming on them after the oil drains off. My seals were at least 7 years old and no idea how much older they were. After filling with new oil i added some Lucas to them to see if they will last longer.

Ours is a 91 Regency with a Gillig Chassis. It was originally grease packed, but the previous owner converted it over to the oil bath bearings. They thought it was less work to maintain.

I just thought it was normal to have oil bath.looked further into the ownership and found out an excavating company owned the Barth before me .He must have put them on.
lenny

Well Lenny, our Barth has oil bath front hubs too. Maybe it was what Barth called for on the Spartan chassis Regencies? The hub centre on ours is clear plastic with the "add" and "full" tide line ring so you can see if you are "down a pint".
Sez they are Stemco hub seals, Longview Texas. I like it!
Don

For some reason this subject really caught my attention. What are the virtues of oil bath versus grease bearings? Over the last few days I've "attempted" to research the subject on the web, but mostly found a myriad of opinions rather than straight facts. What I did find I'll summarize below and perhaps higher authorities will add to it (or correct).

1) In the beginning all front wheel bearings were grease packed, later on large rigs went to oil bath.

2) There is a correlation between air brakes and oil bath.

3) There needs to be enough volume for oil bath to be effective, small bearing cavities tend to be greased.

4) Grease is just oil in a "carrier" that changes its consistency.

5) Trailers (like boat trailers) are changing over to oil bath on the larger units.

6) Most all large rigs change from grease to oil, not the other way around. No one actually said oil is "better", but there is a theme to upgrade to oil bath.

7) There was some controversy over oil bath bearings needing to be "turned" to keep the top of the bearing - which is out of the oil bath - from rusting. Some self-proclaimed experts said this is bunk, the lube remains for many eons and there is not enough air infiltration to worry about.

8) If an oil system has a seal failure, it gets messy fast. Oil seal failures can soak a brake quicker than grease. You might catch a grease leak before it damages the brake linings.

9) Synthetic grease was highly regarded.

The following are some of my own semi-formed opinions from what I read:

1) The correlation between oil and air brakes may have to do with heat. Air brakes are usually drum and drum brakes do not dissipated heat as readily as disc. It makes sense that oil will absorb the added heat and equalize quicker than grease can as grease will need to melt to a liquid form before it can equalize.

2) The fluidity of oil means that the lubricating qualities of the entire volume will need to be used up before it fails, grease may not flow in cold conditions and therefore the lubricating properties of only a small volume may fail even though there is lots of "good" grease located in the hub.

3) Historically, grease seems more suitable for slow moving components, like steering components. I tried to imagine how you would "grease" lube an engine and it seems fraught with danger. Oil begins lubricating immediately and I suspect grease has a lag time to let friction melt it (I'm really guessing).

4) Oil bath systems are very easy to monitor and maintain in fleets.

5) In really cold conditions I wounder if grease can lubricate properly??? Even oil struggles at times.

My end analysis is that oil bath is a slightly more advantageous system, but proper monitoring and maintenance render either as adequate or not.

quote:

4) Grease is just oil in a "carrier" that changes its consistency.

Actually, the term is "thickener". "Consistency" ("thickness"?) doesn't change until the thickener reaches its drop point; clay thickeners have no drop point. The base stock (oil) does thin with increasing temperature.

quote:

3) Historically, grease seems more suitable for slow moving components, like steering components. I tried to imagine how you would "grease" lube an engine and it seems fraught with danger. Oil begins lubricating immediately and I suspect grease has a lag time to let friction melt it (I'm really guessing).

Grease also begins lubricating immediately. One reason bearings use oil is for cooling, and it'a especially important in an engine. The proper grade of grease can be used in high-speed and exteme cold applications.

quote:

Grease also begins lubricating immediately. One reason bearings use oil is for cooling, and it'a especially important in an engine. The proper grade of grease can be used in high-speed and exteme cold applications.

Rusty, I was hoping you'd chime in with your deep knowledge on this subject. I'm enjoying learning about these new and different applications in large chassis.