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Drive Axle Hub Smoking
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I know all of us that have been in legit business (Metal Fabrication) have insurance to cover any and all libilities. I take my coach in to Prevost or Stewart Stevenson for what ever needed on ours. They will be covered with insurance. I wish you would post name and outcome of repairs with different mechanic. Next step for me would be to hire an attorney and see where you end up. ( And I don’t like Lawyers) Have other mechanic document cause and repair. Might not get a dime back but i would shake this like a pitbull. Good luck.
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Here’s a little secret………..C&G nailed it, but until an owner gets an opportunity to develop relationships with other Prevost owners and has an opportunity to develop his or her own list of trusted service personell it is a risk anytime someone works on his coach. That is, unless as glens points out the company commands respect within their industry.
We have a lot of active members on this site and I can tell you we are not going to censor posts about a service provider. Just to be clear, if a service provider takes advantage of someone that person can post their experience. If it is the truth there is little the guilty party can do to harm the person posting or this web site. We will censor and delete posts that say XXX Company sucks if there is no explaination of the details.
If you read the forum you will find our members also praise service providers. That does not mean those service providers cannot stub their toes and make mistakes. But if you read through them you will find some of the posts are about screw ups, but the purpose of the post was to make people aware that the service provider went out of their way to make the owner satisfied. Those are the service shops we want to support and patronize.
Shitty service hurts us all. It makes the victim bitter and when someone gets taken advantage of their displeasure is felt by us all. We can all sympathize because we are all potentially at the mercy of those incompetents, either by getting taken advantage of, or by ending up with a coach someone has screwed up.
This site was created to benefit all Prevost enthusiasts. Share your experiences, good and bad and name names.
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You guys are great. I really appreciate it.
The axle doctor is coming out to weld on a new spindle/snout. I can have them re-assemble the entire hub and bearings. That will help with the peace of mind part of this.
The shop is covering all expenses and replacement parts as well as labor. The bearings were completely siezed to the axle spindle.
I will say this: A valuable lesson has been learned by this Prevost owner and I will pass along my experiences in the future in hopes of saving someone the pain of this process. One positive thing about this is I have seen and learned things about my bus I never thought I would–so, not all is lost.
This bus has truly become part of our family. We use it constantly and even my 11 year old is pissed about this deal.
Thanks again for your help. If you read about a missing truck mechanic in Tulsa I don’t know anything.
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Tough crowd! Even a “certified” and well experienced mechanic can make a mistake. Many have reported here that even the Prevost folks making mistakes. Most of us are human and will make mistakes, even if rare.
I’ve never looked at the bearing housing even though maybe I should have when Prevost replaced one of my seals. I certainly don’t doubt the “tilt” procedure either. It just seems strange to me that the bearing isn’t sitting in enough gear lube when the differential is properly filled to adequately lube a new dry bearing. Whatever the case, the “tilt” procedure must be common in the heavy truck industry as our differential is no different than probably most trucks on the road.
I hope it all works out for you,
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Gil,
I think we all recognize mistakes happen. It appeared from a previous post however that the owner was going to have to pay another mechanic to fix the problem. A later post indicates the company that messed up is standing behind the repairs and that moves that company to the list of good guys.
As to getting lube into the hub our coaches are built so the hubs can be removed and no oil from the differential will be lost. There will be oil in the hub that will come out with the hub.
The hub gets refilled in normal operation by tilting, such as the crown in the road, or by centrifugal force when rounding curves. Differential oil spills from the axle housing past the bearings into the hub. Once it is there it would take a lot to get it out and back into the differential. There really is no provision for filling the hubs other than tipping the whole differential. The mechanic likely was pretty new at the job because when the owner first experienced smoke the mechanic never thought about a dry bearing, but was concerned about tight brakes.
Over the years we have now had 3 owners that had this same problem, the two previous ones occurred a number of years ago and in both cases they got about 4 miles before the bearings welded themselves to the differential.
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Replacing seals on the drive axle r simple and pre lubing the bearings r simple , if that tech worked for one of my company’s , He would get his walking papers for that stunt unacceptable work even if they stand behind the poor work it’s still the company’s fault and the tech should be held accountable for the poor work, we all make mistakes but that one no way . R techs do those every day simple shit!!!!!!!! If the tech did not know to pre lube bearings what next leaving the old rubber washer from the old oil filter on or not at all can’t be trusted !!!!!!!!!
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Jon: “no provision for filling the hubs other than tipping the differential”. Is this correct? I’ve had about 6 drive axle seals replaced and I recall Prevost simply pumping some gear lube into the hub during reassembly.
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Tipping the diff takes time to get to bearings next pack bearings with grease or pre lube bearings and fill hubs
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Joel,
I was referring primarily to filling the hub when driving. In other words, when the hub seal is replaced and the coach is driven it is typically the tipping or driving around curves that insures the hubs receive oil. If the hub seal leaks that is how the proper level in the hub is maintained.
Prevost’s method of filling the hub is as good a way of doing it as any.
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Final update on the drive axle hub.
–New Hub (hard to find)
–New Spindle (Axle Surgeon)
–New Races
–New Bearings
–New Hub Studs
–New Seals
–Drum and shoes in good shape
Had mobile heavy truck/bus mechanic come onsite and re-do the job once the new spindle was replaced. Long ordeal. Over here in England for a bit and our bus is waiting at home ready for our next trip.
Cheers
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During the PPI Jeff Rowe reached behind the drive tires and said one of the seals was leaking. Fortunately the bus was 18 miles from his shop. One of the things he did once I bought the bus was replace the seal. He explained that differential should be tilted as mentioned earlier, otherwise the bearing would get hot and seize in as little as four miles (I’m not making this up, four miles is distance he used!). Because Eastern Tennessee Luxurty Coach has individual wheel lifts, its easy for Jeff to tilt and lube the hub and bearings properly.
When it was time to leave for home with our new to us Prevost, Jeff also made me promise that in 50 or so miles I should stop, and check the temp of the hub … making sure it wasn’t any hotter than the rest. I think Jeff told me to do that four times as we were getting ready to leave. Even with the tilting of the drive axle, he was still concerned about that hub and getting lube to it. I asked, “Have you ever had a problem with new seals?” Jeff said, “No, and I don’t want you or the next customer to be the first.”
Its unfortuate this happened. Learning experience for the rest of us.
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To get a sense of just how long it takes for differential gear oil to flow past the bearings everyone should add a little to their steer or tag axles if they have oil bath hubs.
The reservoir will quickly fill with oil. At least it will give the appearance it is full. But after several minutes it becomes apparent the oil level is going down. After about 15 minutes the oil that was added has oozed past the bearings into the hub and the amount of oil seen in the plastic lens is down to just a little over where it was when oil was added.
The point being the differential has to be tipped quite a while to allow the oil to get past the bearings and into the hub. So if you do have a hub seal changed keep that in mind.
Tip the axle, grease the bearings or fill the hub (about 1/2 to 3/4 of a quart I think) and the bearings will be fine.
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Our shop policy was to add gear oil after replacement of hub seal just above the add mark, parts cold / room temp.
As mentioned the oil is so thick it takes some time to fill the cavity completely. When the oil gets hot we are with-in the two (2) level marks. Filling to FULL cold usually is overfull at run temperature.
note the small breather-hole top center -
A
few years back I had the front rotors changed on my Royale in
Knoxville at Russel Coach which required the hubs to be removed.
After putting everything back together dry, it took some time to get
the hub oil level to the low/high mark. I then drove back home to GA
and it took until late the next day to finally get the oil level to
stabilize after adding oil a little at at time.Moral
of this story, check those hubs and it does take a LONG time for the
oil level to stabilize after a dry installation. I just sucked out
overfill oil on 3 or my 4 hubs and for you folks with the later
Stemco’s (non removable rubber plug) with the metal fill plug, that process is a real joy. You
need to make yourself a special cut off allen wrench then get the
wheels to a position where you can remove the plug and add or
subtract oil.Also,
if you have some weeping around the face of the later Stemco’s,
tighten all the small star screws, they all seem to get loose. I told
Buddy about the allen wrench while we were doing his tires and he
promptly went to his tool box and pulled out his cut off allen. You
can’t get anything past Buddy…..
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