How To Grease The Wheel Bearings On Your Vintage Camper

One of the most important things to keep up with on your vintage trailer is tire maintenance. After all, the tires are what gets you from point A to point B. And if you are a inexperienced camper, you want to try and minimize road mishaps as much as possible. Later in this post I will show you how to grease the wheel bearings on your vintage camper.

But first…

Did you know tires have an expiration date?

• It’s true! There is a DOT number located on the sidewalls of your tires. The last four digits in this number are what tell you how old that tire is.  The first two numbers represent the week the tires were manufactured and the last two numbers are the year. As a general rule, you should replace those tires every six years. In the meantime other signs of wear are bulging, cracking or a shallow tread depth.

Proper care of your RV tires.

There are other things you can do to prolong the life of your RV tires.

• Proper inflation-Always make sure you tires are inflated properly. Check your tire pressure before every trip.
• Proper weight distribution-Make you that you distribute weight inside your vintage camper evenly. Also it is important to follow your camper’s guidelines for maximum weight.
• Proper storage- Does you vintage trailer sit for long periods of time? Some suggestions are to store in a cool, dry place if you can, store on blocks if possible, and move it every three months or so.

One of the most important parts of tire and wheel maintenance is greasing the bearings.

This is a very important maintenance step to take for the care and safety of your vintage camper wheels. This guide from Camping World can help you determine how often this should be done. On my little Beatrice, It’s the first thing we do when we take her out of winter storage. You can have yours done at an RV center, but we do ours at home.

We created two videos on our DIY Vintage Camper Rescue YouTube Channel to guide you through the process if you choose to take on the task yourself.

This is Part One. Taking the tire off in preparation for greasing the bearings.

This is Part Two

I hope these two videos will help if you decide to do this yourself.

Owning a vintage camper is full of challenges, but the look you get whenever you take them camping, is so rewarding. They are fun, but most of all owning a vintage trailer is all about preserving a piece of the past.

Thanks for reading. Please share this post with other vintage camping enthusiasts, or camping enthusiasts in general.