Working on our old trailer...

I'm working on getting my grandpa's old car trailer back road worthy. Trailer was built in '76 and my grandpa has had it since 1983. Couple hundred or more cars have been on this thing over the years, been pulled over 70,000 miles behind his old chevy motor home in the 80's and 90's when they were driving all over eastern U.S. buying, selling and trading cars, mostly Mustangs. They used it to tow my dad's Comet from Atlanta to Indianapolis a few times.

But anyway, enough back story. Trailer has been just sitting around in the field since about 1998. All tires are bald and rotted, plus they're old as hell with tubes in them. Only tattered remnants are left of the wiring and lights. Found a nearly brand new set of 12 ply very heavy duty trailer tires mounted on rims and everything on Craigslist, went and got them yesterday for only $100! The trailer has very beefy mobile home axles under it. While pulling the old wheels off, I noticed these "finger" things that hold the wheel to the hub are very worn. Looks like the wheels have been swapped around and the nuts have been tightened so many times, that it's just worn them to the point that the nuts are recessed in them and the metal is very thin on some. Does anyone know what these are called, and where I can get new ones? Sorry, I didn't have a camera with me today, and this is the best pic I have of the trailer's axle setup:



This Saturday I'll be cleaning all the old nasty grease out, repacking all the bearings, putting the new tires on, rewiring the trailer and putting new lights on. Then Sunday will be it's maiden voyage back out on the road behind my grandpa's '05 F150. Have to make a 215 mile round trip down here from NC to get my '89 Chevy truck so I can get it up there and swap the engine. Will be nice to have this thing back in usable condition again so I won't have to borrow trailers or dollys anymore to move cars.

 

Jamie, around here we call those wedges. Probably not the correct term. My trailer has those also. Some truck tire dealers have those in stock, as well as mobile home parts dealers. You need one of the old ones to match with, as there are different sizes of them. The wheels must be tight when installed, any slippage will ruin the wheel and possibly the wedge too.

 

Do those type of axles (mobile home axles) come with brakes on them?

Up here in Indiana.......several places sell brand new complete trailer axles pretty cheap.

 

Craig, isn't Indiana the trailer manufacturing capital of the world?

 

i think they (mobile home axles) are outlawed now in Ga....i would check and see...
that wedge is what trues the rim with the spokes...and it's a...best guess...getting them right...

 

ive seen mobile home axles both with brakes and w/o brakes. certain sizes of those tires have been outlawed from road use as well

 

My first car trailer had those "wedgie" wheels on it. They were old and rusty, needed replacing, and due to their age, oddity and unsure of size standards, I went ahead and replaced both axels with standard Chevy bolt pattern 3,500 lb trailer axels (one with brakes)

Well worth the investment....no worries about odd/old/obsolete wheel/tire combos

 

I think they are called "lugs" hence lug nuts. Not what you wanna hear,,, mobile home tires an axles are temporary units an as said check local laws, also check what the tire has written on sidewall. You may a heavy-duty construction trailer with good axles! Good practice is to tighten up your lug nuts REAL often!

 

As far as I know, they are only outlawed for new constructed trailers. If they are already in use, they are ok. Make sure the tires are DOT rated. Some will say for lowboy use. Some construction and heavy duty lowboys still use that kind of wheel, just not mobile homes use them. Best way to align them is put all the wedges and nuts on snug, set a bottle or hammer on the ground for a reference point, and spin the wheel slowly. Tighten the lugs where the wheel is outward first. It may take a time or two to get them right until you get the hang of it. Once you get it aligned, then tighten all of them in a star pattern real good.

 

Jamie call this guy. Glen Clark Mobile Home Moving, he knows everything about the rules for axles,tire sizes, and has 100s of axles he will probably give you whatever your needing. 931-979-0100

 

been sitting for 10-12 years...


I would get the...new tag/reg. before i messed with them tires/rims...

 

I hate those wheels, we use to have a work trailer with those. We finally swapped the axles over to use regular wheels. We got them cheap on sale.

 

I don't know about the WORLD......but yeah.....there are a lot of them here.

 

The old tires I took off did say mobile home use only on the sidewall. The ones I got yesterday are Good Year tires and don't have anything about mobile home on the sidewall. Don't know if they had a DOT number. Both axles do have electric drum brakes on them, but they're very old and completely trashed.

Legal or not, the trailer was used for years just the way it is, proven itself time and time again. I don't plan to change it much. As long as all the lights work as they should, and it has a current tag on it, the chances of getting pulled over and hassled over a small privately owned car trailer are slim, at least in these parts.

The trailer does have a Georgia state issued VIN plate on it like I had to get for my redneck trailer. Except where as my redneck trailer's VIN that I built in 2009 is T781xxx, the plate on this car trailer starts with T008xxx. So if those numbers have built up consecutively through the years as the state has issued VIN's, that number alone should be proof positive of the trailers age.

 

no trailer tags or vin's needed in ky