Vault bearings vs ez lube

Coz

Active Member
Oct 9, 2018
443
Boat Info
2008 Sundancer 310
Engines
Merc Mag 350 DTS w/Bravo III
I have triple axles with vault hubs and tow a 310 frequently. Noticed 2 seals had blown and leaked oil all over inside of tire and on disc brakes. Popped hub protector off and found water inside.

So.......I don’t like the idea that I can lose all the oil that quickly. They’re not even 2 years old. Thinking of changing to ez lube. My spindle is drilled so it’d be very easy.

Any thoughts?
 
EZ Lube rubber cap plugs don’t make a positive seal so water will get ingested when you back in the water and the warm hubs cool and create an internal vacuum. True (non-immataion) Bearing Buddies would be my choice. They’ve always worked well for me on several boat trailers.

You periodically pump them up with an ordinary grease gun which compresses a spring and causes continuous positive pressure inside the hub. When you dunk and the hubs cool, the spring expands but still maintains positive internal pressure so water can’t get in.

No matter what you do, use new inner seals and make sure the seal surface on the spindles isn’t pitted. Sometimes I’ve had to install “Speedi-Sleeves” on spindles when they’ve become unserviceable on trailer spindles.
 
I personally believe ez lube is the best system on the market. I don’t like bearing buddies because when you add grease your just pushing grease into the outside of the hub. How do you know if both bearings are getting grease? With ez lube the grease goes to the inside of the inner bearing and comes out at the dust cap so you know everything is getting properly greased. Sometimes when I trailer my boat to a long distance location. I will grease the bearings when I pull the boat out of the water. I’m anal about my wheel bearings but there’s nothing worse then being broke down along the highway with bad bearings on a Sunday afternoon.
 
I'm a fan of the ez lube hubs as well, and for the same reasons as mentioned above. The water ingress may be an issue, but I never noticed water in any of my hubs on a tri-axle. The trailer only dunked twice a year and I would typically give them a shot of grease each time, so your mileage may vary.
 
The trick with boat trailer hub bearings is keeping the grease inside and the water outside. Bearing Buddies do that very well. Opposed tapered roller bearings were the standard in front wheel hubs of cars and trucks for decades. They would run for years and thousands of miles without servicing or exchanging grease. Trailer hubs are no different in design. There is no need to inject fresh grease.

I’m a retired auto/truck mechanic. I’ve serviced thousands of trailer hubs over my 40+ year career. Dry trailer hub bearings rarely fail and when they do, it’s usually because the dust cap has been missing or the inner seal failed.

“Wet” trailer hubs are quite different. It was unusual for us to service a set of boat trailer hubs that didn’t have water contamination and pitted bearings unless equipped with Bearing Buddies. On my boat trailers, I pop the Bearing Buddies off annually to make sure the grease isn’t turning yellow or white (which would indicate water intrusion), put them back on, and pump them up properly.
 
Here’s 2 of my 6 vault hubs after 1 season. Didn’t know the inner seals were leaking til I pulled a tire for another reason. Not a fan of these because you can’t inspect them.

had ez lube on last trailer. Loved em but only had 2 seasons.

have heard many stories of bearing buddies falling off.
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I understand the thought behind why EZ Lube's are better than BB's (pushing grease from the back side). But that's due to marketing hype. The reality is that either system greases the bearings just as well. If the cavity is full, the grease will naturally migrate everywhere - it will WANT to find/fill any air pockets. Besides, the BB is applying pressure to the grease in there - it works. It's only in "theory" that the EZ Lube does a better job - they both do a good job.

Coz - it's important to stick your head under/back there and check things out. That's just the name of the game and things you should be doing on a regular basis. The downside to oil is that, in my opinion, minor pitting of the spindle will allow the oil to leak out. Whereas grease is thicker (even though it thins out "some" as it gets warmed up) and is much less likely to leak out.

As noted above, there are spindle repair kits you can get if it turns out the spindle is, indeed, pitted.

Bearing Buddies don't pop off "a lot" - it happens, but it's a very small percentage. When you say "many" stories, that tends to exaggerate the issue. Remember, we only ever hear about the bad stuff... not the tens of thousands upon tens of thousands of trailers out there with BB's that are just fine. That said, it did happen to have one fall off on me. I'm not sure where along the trip it happened, but I when I got to my destination, I noticed. Everything still appeared to be well greased (grease is thick so it hangs around), so I popped another one on there and went boating. When I got home, I pulled the hub off and inspected - all good. Went another 5 years before I sold the boat. You also have to take into account that maybe the person that installed the BB didn't get it fully seated which would make it off balance.
 
Thanks Lazy. I’m gonna go with bearing buddies. I talked with them about using a loctite on the bearing buddy and the hub (which is what the vault system uses) and they said I could and that would help if the hub was a little out of tolerance. Loctite 620 looks like a good choice.

Vault also uses sealant between the inner seal and hub (I believe red rtv). Have you ever used sealants in either location? Guessing most likely spot for leakage is between inner seal and spindle. Not much you can do about that
 
No, I've never really found a need for sealant between the seal and the hub - but I can't really think of a reason why it would bad, either. Definitely can't put anything between the seal and the spindle... but that's where those SKF or Bearing Buddy seal kits come into play.

Be sure to smooth out the spindle surfaces.
 
Thanks Lazy. I’m gonna go with bearing buddies. I talked with them about using a loctite on the bearing buddy and the hub (which is what the vault system uses) and they said I could and that would help if the hub was a little out of tolerance. Loctite 620 looks like a good choice.

Vault also uses sealant between the inner seal and hub (I believe red rtv). Have you ever used sealants in either location? Guessing most likely spot for leakage is between inner seal and spindle. Not much you can do about that
Authentic Bearing Buddies have a ribbed surface on the portion that fits into your hub which makes them difficult to remove. I can’t imagine one “falling off” unless it struck something.
Sealant around the inner seal isn’t necessary.
If your hubs are threaded to accept a screw-on cap like a clear oil-bath hub, I doubt Bearing Buddies will work or seal to the hub.
 

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