Maintenance of D52 Nev-R Lube Axles with Alcan Springs

[jd1923]

This maintenance can be completed in 2 hours (by the young experienced mechanic), or you could take most of the day! Have fun and pride in your Oliver! Take your time. I did the curbside yesterday and did the other side today (not young anymore, like splitting tasks across days). The second side went very fast today, done in only 90 min having the tools out and ready.

This is just how I worked our suspension maintenance, in how it made sense to me, based on my automotive experience, not Dexter nor OTT approved! IMHO this maintenance should be conducted annually, or perhaps bi-annually for those who tow 10K +/- miles in a year. Some may work this routine every two years.

Following is a suggested 10-Step Suspension Maintenance procedure: 

1) On level ground, jack up one side of the trailer, using the rear leveler jack, while the Oliver is hitched to the tow vehicle (mandatory for safety).

2) Spin each tire to see if it rolls freely. Listen carefully for any unusual sounds. Try to wobble each wheel left to right (3-9 clock positions) and top to bottom (6 - 12) to observe any free-play. There should be no observable free-play with the Nev-R Lube bearings.

3) Remove the lug nuts on both wheels with impact (no impact, loosen with tires on ground). Place a jack stand under rear axle, close to wheel, for safety since your body will be under the trailer to do some of this work (see pic1).

4) Grease all six (6) wet bolts, plus two (2) grease fittings on the EZ Flex. Use a power grease gun if available with a LockNLube coupler attached. Add just enough grease to see some ooze from an edge. Wipe up all excess grease. A straight-blade screwdriver helps to remove old grease from recessed areas. Wipe grease fittings before and after and place caps back on (I don’t use caps).

5) Torque all suspension bolts to Alcan specs. 90 ft-lb for U-bolts, 80 ft-lb for the EZ Flex center bolt and both end-points, and 65 ft-lb on the shackle wet-bolts. The U-bolts will set at some point where they will not need further tightening. They rust into place and once this occurs, they’re done and you will not need to check again in future service (not true for the wet-bolts). I go lighter torque than Alcan specs on the wet-bolts, 70 and 58 ft-lbs which is an eighth (12%) lighter. The 80 and 65  numbers seem high to me.

6) Check drag on the drums. They should contact the shoes ON and OFF when spinning (shoes installed are not perfectly round). If they do not drag at all, the self-adjuster is not tightening properly (see pic2 brake assembly, adjuster at bottom). Mine were all dragging just right on like-new axles.

There are two inspection ports on the backside. Unfortunately, there is no way to reach the gear to adjust it, due to the Oliver wide leaf/shock absorber plate. If adjusters are not working, the hub/drum must be removed (see step 8).

7) Pull the trailer emergency brake switch and turn the drums until they stop (to ground magnet). Check amperage draw at each wheel, placing amp meter clamp around ANY single wire behind wheel. Amperage should be 3A +/- without much difference between wheels. My LF wheel was 3.1A and the other three all read 2.8A, the two main brake wires coming out of the streetside Oliver hull read 6.1A front and 5.8A rear. These numbers look good enough to me!

8] Now the question is, do the brakes need a full inspection? I would say no for the first 2 years, then later with enough miles towed (>25K miles). Perhaps work a full inspection after 3 years. Then skip year 4 and do another full inspection year 5. Something like that!

Clean brake dust without internal inspection: Use compressed air to blow through all openings of the braking plates to remove all shoe dust from the interior of the brake drums. Wear safety glasses and stay upwind from the cloud of brake dust. Blow throughout until you see only clean air.

Full inspection of trailer brakes: Remove the bearing dust cap, the small outer circlip and spindle nut, then slide the drum off. Use compressed air to remove all brake dust (Brakleen spray unnecessary). Make sure shoes are clean, free of grease, clean if necessary (sand shoes lightly). Check shoe thickness, There is not much material there to begin with (Dexter shoes new have only 0.18" or 4.5mm material). They will look thin but when wearing evenly should be good for many more miles. Check the action of the shoes by pulling the magnet to see all is working as designed. Replace shoes if necessary, or replace the entire braking plate assembly, which is bolt-on and economical.

If you have enough miles to replace shoes, the drums should be turned or replaced. Replacing shoes without doing so would result in poor trailer braking performance. Drum assemblies with new bearings are very expensive! The Nev-R Lube bearings are warranted for 5 years or 100K miles (our hull will not clock 100K mile in the next 10 years)! Some who tow a lot may replace bearings every 5 years. I will carry replacement bearings and tools with me to replace as needed, as they could fail at any time or last many, many years.

Then replace the drum, washer and spindle nut. To retorque, mount the wheel, lower the tire to just touching the ground and torque to 155 ft-lb. Then replace the circlip and dust cap. Remove wheel again to mount center caps, though many of us go without center caps so that hub temps can be checked at stops while towing.

9) Remove gravel from the tread of both tires, using a thin flat-blade screwdriver, while inspecting for tread wear, tire defects and foreign objects. I do this with All of our vehicles, every time wheels are removed for any reason. I’ve found many screws and other sharp metal objects in tire treads, sometimes causing slow leaks that can be fixed now vs. getting worse on the highway.

10) Mount rims, lower hull to get rim close, making it easy to place wheel on studs. Use impact on light setting and snug up lug nuts evenly. Lower hull to sit on wheels, remove leveler blocks, and torque lugs to 90 ft-lbs.

Repeat all 10 steps on the other side of the trailer.

Let me know if I missed something or other suggestions! 😎

 

Edited 4 hours ago by jd1923

[2008RN]

Looks pretty good to me,  Combines both the greasing wet bolts and physical inspection of operations  and rough cleaning without remove the drums.  I have never removed a drum with sealed bearings,  I have done many vehicles over my years that have the old style tappered bearing.  How easy is it to pull the drums of the Never-lube bearings (sealed bearings)? 

Even if everything looks good physically at some point the drum needs to be removed to check wear of drum  and brake shoes.   The nice thing with normal vehicles that have sealed bearing they have brake calipers, pads and rotors, being able to check everything with external inspections. 

[jd1923]

6 minutes ago, 2008RN said:

Looks pretty good to me,  Combines both the greasing wet bolts and physical inspection of operations  and rough cleaning without remove the drums.  I have never removed a drum with sealed bearings,  I have done many vehicles over my years that have the old style tapered bearing.  How easy is it to pull the drums of the Never-lube bearings (sealed bearings)? 

Even if everything looks good physically at some point the drum needs to be removed to check wear of drum  and brake shoes.   The nice thing with normal vehicles that have sealed bearing they have brake calipers, pads and rotors, being able to check everything with external inspections. 

Thank you, Bob! LOL, you and I both, have "done many vehicles over my years!" I've done 3 brake jobs this year alone and I want to quit having to do brake jobs around here, OMG! 🤣

Removing the drum is very easy on the Nev-R Lube axles, and no red grease mess! It's just not something to do when less than one year old with 3600 miles, as in my case. I will likely do so at 3rd inspection. Your question is a good one though, a GREAT addition to this post and soon I'll add this step to the above procedure. 😎

Remove the bearing cap, the small outer circlip and spindle nut is all it takes (more info in post linked below). One trick is retorquing the spindle nut afterwards. I got confirmation from Dexter (via Lew at Alcan), that these spindle nuts can be reused (should replace after 2-3 uses). To retorque, I would mount the wheel, lower the tire touching the ground and torque to 155 ft-lb (remove wheel again if you mount center caps). Then replace the circlip and dust cap and that's all there is to it.

[DanielBoondock]

To keep it looking new I’d just add doing a deep clean to the wheel and suspension. Wash, use the Duragloss aluminum cleaner and I recommend Griots SiO2 tire sealer.

Looking for a good cleaner for the grease and dirt. Just using elbow grease for now

[jd1923]

15 hours ago, 2008RN said:

Even if everything looks good physically at some point the drum needs to be removed to check wear of drum  and brake shoes.

I have revised the original post to add a full brake inspection (see step #8 above).

[jd1923]

4 hours ago, DanielBoondock said:

Looking for a good cleaner for the grease and dirt.

At your local Walmart for $10, I've been using Super Clean for years. Use it full strength on greasy parts.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Super-Clean-Tough-Task-Cleaner-Degreaser-1-Gallon-128-Fluid-Ounces/23752162/

But if you really want to clean greasy/grimy parts, you would not believe how a Go-Jo style mechanics hand soap cleans parts! Rub on patiently with a soft brush (toothbrush and/or larger brushes), then hose off and blow with compressed air! I've used this in many restoration projects. Can't beat the price on this item too and check how clean these parts came out! 😎

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Purple-Power-Heavy-Duty-Creme-Hand-Cleaner-14-oz/345407987/

Edited 4 hours ago by jd1923

[DanielBoondock]

Just completed my 3k lube. A couple of the farthest out zerks wouldn’t take grease but I got the helpful tip to jack the trailer up. Did so and they took grease no problem. Couple extra tips

• Zerk covers can be useful to remind you which have been greased. For example I went over the trailer, and replaced the covers on the finished ones. Then later when I got a chance to jack the trailer the uncovered ones were the ones that needed doing, and they got covered when finished. 
• Here’s a super handy collapsable stool to work on these, so small you can take it with you
• Several ways to attack the fittings. For me the stock straight zerks plus a right angle grease fitting worked perfect, no need for angled nipples or lock on port
• Have plenty of shop towels on hand

Question: any thoughts if the grease only seems to come out to the gap nearest the nipple, can we trust that it’s making it through the rest of the bolt?