Glitter in Wheel Bearing Grease

[PDSACA54]

I was conducting some routine maintenance on our travel trailer this morning when I found something a little disturbing. I was going to just going to use the zerks on the ez-lube spindle (I know how to carefully use the ez-lube). When I started pushing in new grease, the grease that came out still looked pretty good as far as color and consistency, but it had a bunch of glitter throughout. I ended up pulling the hubs and hand packing all the bearings. Every hub (all four) had the same glittery substance in the old grease. The bearings and races all looked good. What might be going on here? Red-n-tacky is all that has ever been used on this trailer.

 

[facility1]

clean every thing up with solvent dry then repack with new grease (using correct amount) or replace bearings if looking bronze color or worn ,making sure the bearings are properly loaded (tension),personally i would use another brand of grease ,like Mystik Jt-6 semi-synthetic (blue color) ,or Kendall L-427 ,and new seals too. the Lucas red and tacky may be to adhesive for your bearings as they may run at a fairly high speed.

 

[ripcord]

Is there evidence of pitting on the rollers?

 

[PDSACA54]

Once I cleaned everything up, bearings and races looked good to go. No pitting, discoloration, or anything that showed any signs of a problem. The castellated nut did seem a bit tight on the first hub, but after that they all seemed about right. They are now all properly packed, seated, and loaded (to the best of my calibrated hand, I’m not using instruments to measure end play). I know everyone does it a little differently, but I snug and back off the axle nut three times while keeping the hub slowly turning. I finish up by getting the nut hand tight only. I’m confident everything is fine now, just thought the glitters in the old grease were out of the ordinary.

 

[Texcl2]

I’ve never had glitter in a good bearing. I wonder, since the bearings look good is it possible the castle nut retaining pin was left too long and scraping the cap? That’s an easy mistake to make. I’d be taking a very close look at those bearings because glitter is definitely not normal.