Extreme Trailer - Service

[kjohnson709]

Post removed. See Post #2.

[kjohnson709]

Figured I would revive this thread to document and help anyone who is trying to DIY service their trailer w/ Trailer Buddy or UFP hydraulic actuated disk brakes. Started by disassembling everything, cleaned up the fenders, and painted the wood backing black. I am now working on disassembling the hub/rotor assembly to get at the inner races and inner bearings. Getting the rear seals off has proven to a pain in the butt!

Waiting on my parts order and will post additional pics, steps, etc. and I am also planning on bleeding and replacing the brake fluid.

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[kjohnson709]

Okay got everything cleaned up, painted the brake calipers to try to prevent any future rust, and all my parts came in. Picking up grease today so hopefully by the end of the weekend I will have the trailer off of jack stands! Then I will work on replacing the brake fluid.

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[kjohnson709]

So I used a race and seal driver, cheap set from Harbor Freight to drive in the bearings and seals. It got the job done but I wouldn't recommend the product. The disks are aluminum so they tend to chip when driven on the steel trailer wheel hubs. Actually gave me a nasty splinter in mu finger also. Should have used the 4x4 block method.
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Here is a photo of the finished product. A little high heat automotive paint makes everything look nice. Now on to the brakes!

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[kjohnson709]

I started the brake job by draining the old brake fluid out of the reservoir at the trailer tongue. Pretty rusty stuff! But of course this introduced air into the hydraulic lines so once I replaced the fluid I would need to fully bleed the system to remove all of the trapped air.

here is the ld fluid.

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The I used this cheap vacuum bleeder to start. As you can tell I shop a lot at Harbor Freight haha. it worked okay but once you suck fluid all the way through the system it is impossible to tell if the brakes are fully bled with this because the fittings it comes with to attach to the brake caliper bleeder screw suck and don't create a tight seal. So when you have any amount pf psi sucking fluid out of the lines you also suck in air from around the bleeder screw connection. Again, it worked well to quickly get fluid from the trailer tongue to the calipers but to finish off the job I needed to use a flat head screw driver to engage the hydraulic actuator to "pressurize the system and then go back to the caliper to open and close the bleeder screw before releasing the actuator back to an "un-pressurized" state.

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[kjohnson709]

Okay so bleeding trailer brakes is definitely a 2 person job! It took me 4 days working off and on a few hours at a time to bleed the entire system. In a nutshell you need to engage the actuator and hold it, then go back to the wheels and open the brake caliper. The caliper bleeder screw then needs to be closed back up before the pressure is released from the actuator to avoid sucking air back in the system. You repeat this until you have all the air out and then move on to the next wheel. I ended up putting weights on a chair set in front of the trailer tongue and used a bungee cord attached to the chair and flat head screw driver I used to engage the brakes in order to hold the actuator in place engaging the brakes.

You basically do this until no more air bubbles come out into the water bottle when the bleeder screw is opened and need to keep the reservoir filled with fluid so as not to suck in any new air. Once you get close to the end it is a major work out. As air is removed from the system it becomes harder and harder to engage the brakes all the way with just the little flat head screw driver. If I had a hydraulic jack I probably could have used it against my truck and the trailer tongue to hold the brakes engaged. It is a lot of running back and forth but I finally got all the air out and when the brakes are engaged the tires lock into place pretty solid!

I will tow the boat around to see how it does and may try to bleed one more time. Oh also, it helped a lot to jack up the rear axles and put my jack as low as it could go - making the trailer tongue the lowest point and having the trailer wheels up in the air. I did this and let it sit over night and it seemed that most air traveled uphill towards the calipers. Only took 3 or 4 bleeds after this at each caliper to get rid of all the air.

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[KoolAid]

Need a sticky on this one. Lots of great information here!

[Jetdriver]

Nice write up!
Here’s my tip to easily remove rear seals.
After removing the wheel lay it face down on the ground. Remove the cotter pin, retainer, washer, outer bearing and place on a rag. Pull the hub off and remove the bulk of the grease out of the hub so it doesn’t get everywhere on the wheel during the next step. Place the hub lug posts onto the wheel so that the seal is facing up then using the claw side of a hammer while standing on the tire pry them out. The lug posts hold the hub into place on the wheel your standing on and offer a great way to increase leverage. They come out easy but are of course trash afterwards.
Bleeding is most definitely a 2 person job!

[teachercop]

Any particular brand of wheel bearing grease did you use?

[bestproblog]

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[JaredW-00]

Bleeding brakes sucks. I have used my forklift put it in gear and let it push.