Nice tosee your thoughts Bill.
I'll tell you where I got this idea.
I once worked as a parts man in a Renault Lincoln Mercury dealership,
for thankfully, a brief 3 months. The take-home pay was not much at all
I was also owning R16's at the time.

Somewhere in all that I saw that the offical service on newish R5 Le
Cars was to add a little grease to the rear wheel bearing caps ( same as
front in a 2WD vanagon ).

I thought that was very noteworthy. Grease does seem to gradually
evaporate or whatever over time.
I do things like CV joints and wheel bearings full time..
and have for decades.
It has never hurt to put some extra grease in the cap.
I am not talking about so much it squishes out on the brakes etc.
I've only done it about 5,000 times ..
always with fine results.
and ..
I have seen MANY CV joints and wheel bearing hubs with barely enough
grease in them.
Of course over-doing it so grease comes out isn't good.

That's a great idea swapping the nuts side to side on the frontto get a
new spot to peen in.
There are lots of things I picked up or developed over the years and
decades that I either read, or saw, or just tried.
I have been working on cars largely full time since 1964.
I have lots of tricks that work just great.
I am always focused on longevity ...corrosion prevention ..
and in the case of conversions, making things easy to work on.

it's friday ..
but I won't say much about all the brand new conversion parts I see that
need modification or improvement right out of the box. For example
.....improving it so you can get abox wrench or socket on a hex drain
plugon a new expensive oil sump.
Just blows my mind.

On 12/28/2012 2:44 PM, Bill M wrote:
> Scott
> I mean no disrespect but putting extra grease in the cap just seems like a waste of grease to me. I don't see
> anyway of that making its way into
> the bearing. I do dab a little extra
> over the end of the axle stub and
> nut just to keep the corrosion away.
> I have also re-used the front nuts.
> I try to swap them side to side so
> the previously preened area lands
> in a different spot.
>
> Bill M
>
> On Dec 28, 2012, at 4:06 PM, Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM> wrote:
>
>> Hi Micahael if you don't say FRONT or REAR ...........
>> the only hint is 'pean nut' ...which would be front ..yes, it's easy to
>> re-use those.
>> It's ...it's easy to take apart, inspect, add grease, and adjust.
>>
>> any parts store or even a bearing company can supply that part ..
>> as roller bearings go it's a standard part by dimensions.  There are
>> inner and outer front wheel brgs of course.
>>
>> Put some extra grease in the bearing cap too .  There should be some there.
>> I've seen many under-greased wheel bearings and CV joints. Actually most
>> of them I see don't have enough grease in them.
>> Front wheel bearings on 2WD vanagons last
>> just incredibily amazingly well. I know of dozens, even hundreds of 2WD
>> vanagons where the front wheel brgs are never serviced or checked or
>> even thought about ..and yet they run for decads without problems.
>>
>> you might get away with just a little tightening of the nut ...and I
>> would add some grease to the brg cap.
>> scott
>> www.turbovans.com
>>
>> On 12/28/2012 8:07 AM, Michael Hart wrote:
>>> We're 1000 miles down the Baja peninsula in Santa Rosalia with our '87 Westy.
>>> The passenger side wheel bearing has developed play and is starting to squeal on corners. Advice sought on this;
>>> - tighten the bearing? (& can the pean nut be re-used?, contrary to the advice in Bentley)
>>> - any commonality in the bearing parts with otherVW's ? (not much chance of finding a Vanagon knowledgable shop here).
>>> Despite lots of spares in my underseat cabinet, wheel bearings did not make it in....
>>> Thanks for your suggestions
>>> Michael
>>> '87 Westfalia "T3WESTY"