New trailer tires from eBay
I guess when you live in the country; you get excited by small things. My little red trailer has seen a lot of use over the years; mostly by people besides me. I have used it to help friends move furniture, my son has used is for a mobile coffee bar and it has hauled plenty of lawnmowers and other small bulky items. It makes a good substitute for a pickup truck.
The bed is made from a sheet of 4 by 8 plywood so it is about he same size as a pickup truck bed. The bed also tilts making loading and unloading easier. It has 4.80 by 12 tires on four lug wheels.
I have not seen my trailer in a while because my son has had it. He left it at my Dad’s place because the tires would no longer hold air. They had gotten in pretty sad shape with a lot of dry rot although the tread was still good. The leak turned out to be the valve stem. I had just let it set because it was always used more by other s than by me anyway.
When my Dad offered to buy tires so that we could use it again I quickly accepted the offer and began tire shopping. My first stop was Tractor supply. $57 each for the little tires sounded sorta steep. And I would still have to mount the little buggers. At one time they had tire and wheel combos cheaper than just the tires but that was a long time ago.
I shopped my other favorite stores, Northern Tools and Harbor Freight. They had similar prices. Still more than I thought the little tires should be.
I began searching ebay and found the tires at a more reasonable $42 each including shipping. But I decided to do a little more searching because buying the tires still meant that I would have to mount them. I have had bad experiences with little tires in the past. I much prefer mounting big heavy Maxxis mudders on my Jeep than fooling with the little trailer tires.
I found an auction for tires and rims for not much more money. I le the first one slip by and the second one went for more than I wanted to pay. But I was finally able to buy at less than $55 each. I had not noticed in the first auction that a hub was also included in the deal. When the packages arrived, I found that both wheels had a brand new hub attached.
I asked Dad to bring the trailer to me so that I could change them in my shop. I did not realize how bad the one tire leaked. He said he had to stop and air it up eight times on the way to my house. Good thing he had thought to bring his air tank. I had never bought a spare tire for the trailer.
I put the back of the trailer on the lift and raised it up enough to get the tires off the ground. I had forgotten that the wheels are held on by lug bolts rather than studs and nuts. I seriously considered putting on the new hubs I had just gotten because they had studs and nuts. But after spinning around the old hubs and feeling how smooth they ran, I just decide to put the new wheels on.
I had a bit of trouble getting the holes lined up since the trailer hubs don’t have an alignment pin like Volvos do. I finally learned to spin the hub cap and hold the wheel to line up the holes and get one bolt started. After that the others went in easily. With all eight bolts in and snug, I set the trailer down and torqued the lugs to 70 ft lbs.
I then began looking for a place to mount the one good tire for a spare. I still have not decided yet. Putting it on the tongue will interfere with the tilt mechanism. Putting it on the side with prevent loading wide items across the top of the rails. For now I will just leave it in the deck and move it around as needed.
I am looking forward to loading up some scrap metal and taking it to the recycler. It is nice to have my little trailer back home and with new shoes too.
[phpbay]trailer tires, 10[/phpbay]