I'm repacking the wheel bearings and renewing the axle & hub seals in my 280SL rear axle. Something I found that was interesting and disturbing is that both wheel bearings (and the wheel bearings on another axle) didn't have grease in them but were running fine. Do they stay lubed from the very little bit of axle oil that gets past the axle shaft seal?
To deal with that situation, there appears to be a nice little spot to install a grease fitting in the axle tube to allow greasing of the wheel bearing. There is an annular 45 degree surface between the axle shaft seal and the wheel bearing outer race seat that I could install a 45 degree grease fitting and vent at the seven o'clock and one o'clock positions, respectively (see attached photo). This should allow fairly easy access to the grease fittings with a grease gun.
Has anyone done something like this? Is it a bad idea for some reason? On the good side, it would allow easy greasing of the rear wheel bearings, which we all know are a pain in the behind to do. Would appreciate input on this idea, it'd be great to be able to grease my rear wheel bearings easily, but don't want to create other problems.