Trailer Bearings - How To Measure?

[crokett]

At some point the bearing protector fell off one side of my utility trailer. It has been off long enough that the castle nut is badly rusted. I was thinking I would just go ahead and replace the bearings. Northern Tool lists several sizes. How are they measured? ID? OD? Thickness?

[Daryl]

A number on the race?

[Tom Slick]

The bearings will have numbers on them, those numbers are universal and you should be able to get them from a local bearing/industrial supplier, tractor parts, or auto parts store such as napa. a decent auto parts store will have trailer parts.

otherwise you need to measure the ID of the inner race, OD of the outer race, and overall thickness of the inner race.

[crokett]

I will see if I can read something on the bearing race. I was looking at Northern Tool and see this:

http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/w...+166845+775723

I am thinking that the dimensions given there are for OD.

[Thom2]

This is a little out of my professional realm these days

I spent MANY years being the trailer parts king of New Holland PA tho'. I can't even tell you the times I had customers walk through the door thoroughly disgusted after spending literally HOURS at parts houses looking for trailer bearings to no avail. It was funny to see their face when they'd open the rag up with the old bearings and within 30 seconds I could produce all the pieces they were looking for.

Measure the spindle size where each bearing rides (or the ID of the bearings themselves) and the spindle lip where the seal rides, a competent parts store should have a trailer bearing chart on hand similar to the one shown at this site.

http://shop.easternmarine.com/index....categoryID=188

If nothing else, use that chart to get your bearing ID #'s. The bearings are pretty standard numbering system and any well seasoned parts guy should be able to come up with seals.

[crokett]

Thom! Yer alive!

Thanks for the tip. I will do some measuring and see what the parts places have.