How much grease do I need?

[andyblack]

Just put some new Warn locking hubs on my 10 bolts Wednesday. Thing is, I don't know how much grease to put inside the hub housing back behind the new hubs. I've heard some guys say to fill up that cavity to keep water out. There was some water mixed in there when I took the old hubs off due to the truck sitting rokcer panel-deep in a water hole overnight a couple of months ago so I cleaned out as much of the nasty old grease as I could and put some fresh grease on the stub shaft and a little on the splines of the outer hub body that the new hubs slide into. The new hubs came full of grease. Do you yall think I need more grease or not?

 

[resurrected_jimmy]

No, too much grease will cause the warn hubs to stick, you only need a light coat. if you had water in there you need to pull the bearings out and clean all the old greaseout and repack the bearings. if not you will be doing new bearings in short order

 

[lectric80]

Did you replace the wheel seal at the back of the hub? Water shouldn't leak in unless you have an issue with that seal or the seals on the lockout unit itself.

Did you grease the bearings? If you greased the wheel bearings well there should be no need to fill the hub with grease. I have never seen a need to have the hub full of grease, it is just more work to do the maintenance on the hubs each year.

Unless you have new hubs that are not the Warn premium hubs, you don't want a lot of grease on the lockout itself. This can prevent the hub lock from seating down and could lead to premature failure of the hubs. When I did my Warn Premiums I put a very small amount of grease onto the lockout itself, but it didn't amount to more than a smear to help the lockout engage.

Also, did you check the spindle bearing? If it was sitting that deep into the water I would be watching that one as well to make sure it hasn't rusted and been damaged. A bad bearing here could lead to axle wear, as well as a failure causing damage to the lockout hub.

 

[andyblack]

Fortunately, the water didn't seem to have gotten all the way back to the bearing, just to the inside of the hub body. I was running the original automatic hubs and the seals on them seemed a little stiff. A previous owner must have put all that grease inside there, but at least it stopped the water from getting in the wheel bearings. You should have seen the slime that was in the front diff housing due to someone's bad silicone job after that mud hole debacle! Nasty!

 

[lectric80]

One thing to remember is the spindle bearings have their own seal, and water getting into the hub would probably travel down the spindle to the bearing and could cause rust. Those bearings don't get greased as much as they should. Just something to check, since it is easier to do it now than to have to tear it all back down if they are bad.

 

[andyblack]

Where is this seal?

 

[lectric80]

It is on the back of the spindle, and isn't visible without removing the spindle. It is located where the axle enters the spindle to come through for the lockout.

 

[andyblack]

Okay. I trust you dude, even though you look like Krusty the Clown.

 

[lectric80]

That relates to the Blazer's name, not to me. I look a bit better than Krusty, although not much.

 

[6.2Blazer]

I woudl highly suggest pulling the hub bearings completely apart and checking them. I know you said it appeared that water entering through the locking hubs didn't get into the outer wheel bearing, but there is no way to see the condition of the inner bearing without pulling the wheel hub off.

But back to the original question, I've never packed any additional grease into the cavity between the outer wheel bearing and the locking hub. I usually have a light layer that winds up on the outer stub/spindle area where it rubbed off of the bearings.

As mentioned above, do not put any additional grease on the Warn hubs besides what they came out of the box with. When I ran Warns the most I would do when repacking wheel bearings was clean them up and either smear a really light layer of bearing grease on them, or spray them with white lithium grease.

 

[andyblack]

Excellent. Everyone agrees, then, that I need to check all the bearings and not use a lot grease around the hub. I can handle that. I did put my hand on the hub after the first few miles I drove and the hubs didn't seem to feel hot or anything, so hopefully I'm good.