General trailer question - Hot hubs

[jasondmann]

Hello, I am recently bought a 21' x 8.5' enclosed car hauler that needed new axles. I bought new torsion axles with electric brakes and installed them. I took it for test drive today and all seemed well. The breaks worked great and it wasn't dog tracking at all. When I got home the hubs were really hot, I could not keep my hand on them (all four hubs).

I was told the bearings were pre-packed before delivery. They have ez-lube hubs and I gave them all a couple shots of grease untill I saw the factory grease start to move. When the trailer was in the air, the wheels turned easily without too much drag and the bearings felt good. The last part of my 1hour test drive was in the city with many stops from 50mph (oh yeah I'm fully loaded to around 5000lbs of my 7000lbs GAWR). Did my hubs get so hot from the brakes? Or do I have bearing problems?

I have towed a lot of smaller trailers but nothing with brakes before. On the other trailers I've always been able to hold my hand to the warm hubs after many continuous hours of towing.

Any help would be great I would hate to ruin a brand new set of axles and I am preparing for a 36hour drive with the trailer.

Thanks
Jason

[chipper]

Possible your brake controller is causing your brakes to drag when you are plugged in?

[DennisG01]

While your hubs can get very warm, they should never really get to the point that you can't keep your hands on them. Would you say all four hubs felt the same? While rare, the above point would certainly be an easy thing to check. Just to be sure, check the back side of your wheels to make sure you didn't blow out the rear seal. If none of the above solves the problem, I'd say you need to pull the bearings, check them, reinstall. I'd venture a guess towards the brakes dragging as upon re-reading your post it seems as though all 4 hubs are doing the same thing - unless whoever originally packed/installed the bearings made the same mistake 4 times.

[jasondmann]

Thanks for your replies. I lifted the trailer while it was connected to the truck to check if the brakes were dragging, they weren't. The bearings also felt good. I took it for another drive tonight, this time with the infra red thermometer. I turned the gain way down on the controller to see if it was the brakes heating up, the hubs started at 47 and after 1/2hour of driving it was reading 77 all hubs on the hubs and 74 on the drums, I could comfortably leave my hand on them. I guess the heavy braking was causing all the heat. One guy that I asked at work said that the magnets might have been breaking in and causing a lot of heat.

All seems well, now I can look forward to my trip from Winnipeg to Toronto. I think that the hills are going to slow me down a lot. Oh well slowly but surly I will get there.

Anyone have experience with wind deflectors? I'm thinking of making on to put on top of the truck cap. There trailer is about 2 1/2' higher than the truck and about 10' wider each side, I'm catching a lot of air.

Thanks again for all your help.
Jason