I love the sound of wheel bearings in the morning.....

[Lovey80]

they do come off, ive seen two caps that have fallen off.

at least if you lose a cao the grease stays in place kinda, i dont like bearings buddies just get under the trailer now and then look at the back of the seal and pop the front cap off.

guys who just keep topping their buddies up give you a dumb look when you ask where does it go to need topping up all the time

I would suggest that if they are falling off without an impact then either there was some considerable wear on the inside of the hub or they weren't installed correctly. If you are doing a long trip and are worried about that. Before you leave as you would normally when you check your bearings, just use a combination of grease and oil. One of the biggest advantages of the Durahubs is the clear window. If you get a little water inside you can see the white oil and you know you have water in them. Just rotate the wheel and drain the milky stuff out and top back up with clean oil. If it keeps happening you know you have a dodgy seal at the back. I had it happen with my dual axle and looking from the inside you'd swear the seal was clean and tight. The milky oil suggested otherwise. I fixed it by using a speedy sleeve for the seal to run on and it's been fine ever since.

Previously with bearing buddies, when water would get in I wouldn't know until it was too late.

[Lovey80]

I've never personally used Durahubs but around the boating fraternity I've been involved with ...... it's mixed . Some swear by them but I know more people who ditched them & went back to bearing buddies .
The concept is brilliant .... no doubt
where it comes unstuck is if the axle isn't perfect to start with ...... a scratch can be a leaking point - not a lot but needing top ups.
If the seal goes ..... it's all over red rover in minutes - you cant see it when you are driving (window or not)

At least with the bearing buddy a seal going is not going to be fatal ...... I've seen spit seals ooze grease but because it was known of it was nice coloured grease and the trip continued .
Back in the early days of my boat ownership ..... I'd go for several years with the inside of the hub covered in grease from being pushed out the back seal ...... but still no failures despite my lack of attention - eventually I had a failure driving into my driveway (phew) ....... I think that's when I had my epiphany and thought you really do need to maintain these a bit better than just pumping some grease in

Chris

A speedy sleeve on the stub axle will fix this. Being highly skeptical at first i installed them on my single axle trailer just in case. 7 years later the bearings were like new.

[ranmar850]

Most people think that more grease is better with bearing buddies, it is incorrect.
You deliver enough grease to move the spring piston about 1/2 way only.
By packing them full you can and will either pop the rear seal or the bearing buddy.
As you drive your grease expands with heat over pressurising the hub.

You cannot "pop" a marine type seal, they are designed differently to a conventional seal. Although it will help to force the BB out, I agree. Yes, you certainly can over -pressurise conventional seals with overgreasing, but shouldn't be running these on a boat trailer anyway. The marine seals NEED grease in them to help keep the water out, lip design is quite different. I've seen people point to a disc covered in grease and say this is what you get when you overgrease, but that is taking it to extremes.

On another note, I quite like the idea of the durahub type setup, but just can't risk it with my useage. All my big trips have a minimum of 50km of horrendous corrugations at the end, heavily loaded. I'm talking the sort of corrugations that have some people down to a first gear crawl. I've lost a few BB's on these roads over the years, even though they are fitted up tight by dimpling them, and are checked every stop. Their extra weight just works against them on bad corrugations. I just fit ordinary caps for these trips, change them out when I get there. They would be fine around town, where I only go 1k to the ramp.