Working directly with our service department, I find I spend alot of time educating my customers about how to maintain their RV's. Its always a little surprising how little most people know about maintaining their rigs. With all of the forums, websites and resources available most owners are still pretty clueless about some of the basic maintenance for their RV's. One of the most critical areas of any trailer and often the most neglected, is maintenance to the axles and brakes.
Your axles carry the weight and stress of the RV in all types of conditions. They bear the brunt of extreme heat, cold, stop and go traffic and a whole variety of conditions. Because of this, we recommend having your bearings repacked and brakes checked at least once per year. If you carry livestock, you should consider doing it twice per year. The procedure is simple and can be done by most do it your-selfers in one afternoon.
Durinig a routine inspection the wheel is removed and the brakes are checked for wear. If they are worn beyond 50% they should be replaced. If they are in good condition, they can be simply cleaned and adjusted to make sure they are making good contact with the drum. Next, the bearings should be cleaned of the old grease and checked for wear or damage before repacking them with fresh high temp grease. If the bearings are worn at all, they should be replaced with new because if a bearing fails, the spindle can overheat or seize and throw the wheel completely off. ( You don't want that! ) Next, the spindle should be cleaned and checked for wear and then everything gets re-assembled with new seals to hold in the fresh grease. The wheel lugs are installed and re torqued and that completes the service!
The above is not meant to be an instruction for doing it yourself but rather an explanation of what is done during this service. A good manual to refer to if you want to attempt this yourself is Trailer Life's RV Repair and Maintenance Manual by Bob Livingston. This amazing manual has detailed diagrams and step by step instructions for pretty much any service needed on your RV. Even if you are not doing the work yourself, it will help you understand what your RV shop is talking about when discussing repairs to your RV with you.
Regular maintenance is the key to trouble free operation of your RV. If you keep your maintained, they will provide you with years of trouble free service. If not, you will most likely find yourself on the side of the road with a missing wheel or worse!
Happy Camping!
Michael Kahle
Murrieta Creek RV
951 698 8577
www.murrietacreekrv.com
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