CE Smith Bearing hub kits

**duckcrazed** · 06-21-2024, 08:42 AM

PSA on these kits as I'm sure many of you that trailer use them. I usually purchase components (hubs/bearings etc) separately when I rebuild, but couldn't find the correct hub in town, and west marine had one so I grabbed one as I needed to replace a hub prior to a keys trip.

I went to install the hub kit and noticed there didn't appear to be any grease in the roller bearing channel, I pulled it out and there was in fact 0 grease in the channel (the little that is there is from me handling it), it was simply rubbed on the outside, and the spindle channel was filled with grease. I ended up pulling out the inner bearing and found the same. Ended up bending the seal trying to get the inner bearing out of the kit (and had to buy a bearing/seal kit to replace) so I decided to fire off an email to CE Williams to let them know of the shoddy QC on their line. Even sent the assembled by #

bearings.jpg

Got an email back pretty quick which was appreciated, I sent some photos and thought they would say it was a mistake and we'll do better, but instead after consulting their engineers they said that there was no need to grease the channel as grease would naturally be pulled in to the channel once it starts spinning. I'm calling bullshit on that as the way I was taught, every person I've talked to, and everything I've seen shows you need to manually push grease through the bearing using s glob of grease in your palm. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but until I hear otherwise, a friendly PSA to avoid these kits, or plan on pulling the bearings out and greasing them properly when you install the hub.

**Southernduck** · 06-21-2024, 09:38 AM

Thats crappy.

To hell with working all the grease in from your palm, buy a bearing packer and be done in under a minute with more grease in the bearing. One of the best $25 investments I have made.