Dexter has a standing recommendation of every 12,000 miles or annually. They have to give some type of recommendation. They also recommend if you do not have self adjusting brakes, many do not, that every 3,000 miles you should adjust them.
Unless you are doing a lot of cross country or full timing, us weekend warriors have a hard time putting on 12K a year on a TT. I wish we could…. So from a lubrication standpoint light use is not going to wear out the grease. However I would not say to go beyond 2 years without pulling a brake drum even if you only have 5,000 miles on. The brakes need to be looked at and while the drum is off, change the grease.
It sounds like you might have the EX lube with the grease fitting in the end of the axle. If so jack the wheel up off the ground and spinning the wheel helps moving the grease thru with less pressure against the inside grease seal. The main thing is pump slow. If the inboard seal has a tear or crack into, grease can go right up in the brakes. Pumping fast or worse with a high volume greaser can really make a mess.
See here for how it works, but there is a brake drum and brakes on the inside.
A blown grease seal looks like this inside. And this is off my camper when I got it used and it is a manual grease setup. The seal was nicked, grease warms up and flies out as the wheel spins.
If you know you had a good bearing repack with grease where they did not go stingy on the grease pack, once a year is OK unless you are up in that 8,000 to 10,000 mile range on a long haul then you can add some along the way. Again I would not recommend going beyond 2 years between a drum pull as things happen to these brakes some times.
Actually the first time out with a brand new camper can be the worst. They put so little grease in there it is unbelievable. On a new camper, for sure it needs grease within the 1st year. Like after the first few months of camping.
Hope this helps
John
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Current Sunlines: 2004 T310SR, 2004 T1950, 2004 T2475, 2007 T2499, 2004 T317SR
Prior Sunlines: 2004 T2499 - Fern Blue
2005 Ford F350 Lariat, 6.8L V10 W/ 4.10 rear axle, CC, Short Bed, SRW. Reese HP trunnion bar hitch W/ HP DC
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