Last Thursday my new axle with brakes finally arrived, though the 13" wheels and tires aren't yet in. Tuesday I picked up the axle, fenders, and a pair of spare bearings and seals from KMT Service Parts in Canastota, NY. KMT is in the same location as Kristi Trailer Industries. They have a pretty impressive facility. While I was picking up my parts a couple of guys were welding up a new trailer frame -- it looked lik the frame for a CT. I really wish I'd had Kristi Trailer build me a frame and hang the axle I wanted rather than going the route I took with the Northern Tool bolt-together with changed-out axle, wheels/tires, and fenders. If I build another trailer I'll know better and have Kristi build the trailer frame for me.
In spite of the heat, this weekend I got some work accomplished this weekend. The Dexter Torflex axle mounting guide says that when mounting their axle to a frame that's C-shaped in cross-section that you should reinforce the frame at the mounting location. The axle mounts are 10" long, so I cut two 10" sections out of a cross-member. I ended up with the two 10" pieces plus two longer pieces that I'll use to extend the frame:
I removed the tongue jack, flipped the frame over, removed the original axle, springs, and mounts, and leveled the frame in both directions using chunks of 4x4's, 2xWhatevers, and shims. Here's the flipped frame with the new axle sitting on it at the rough-mounting location:
I used the rough rules for axle placement and decided to set it back 37.5% from the rear of the frame (actually 37.5% from the rear of where the frame will be once it's extended). I ended up moving it forward a half inch from there as that meant that one of the axle mount holes lined up perfectly with a factory hole in the frame. Here's the axle sitting on the mounting location:
Here is one of those 10" pieces cut from a cross-member waiting to be used to reinforce the frame where the axle mounts will attach:
Sorry for the black-on-black, but from the glare you can make out where the inserted 10" piece of cross-member is, right at the axle mount location:
I drilled the frame and reinforcing piece for the axle mount, pulled it all apart and deburred the holes and repainted them, waited for the paint to dry and then put it all back together and mounted the axle using the 1/2" bolts, washers, and nuts that came with the axle. I torqued the fasteners to 80 foot pound as Dexter's install guide says to torque them to 70 to 90 foot pounds for my Dexter Torflex #9 axle.
I then mounted the original 12" wheels and tires (I'm waiting for the 13" wheels and tires I ordered to be delivered), and flipped the frame upright. Here's you can see one side of the new, mounted axle:
In the above picture I've not yet drilled holes to fasten the upper side of the reinforcing piece of side-member channel inside of the main channel. I'll drill for two bolts on each reinforcing piece before the end of this weekend.
I then moved the largest section of cross-member (this trailer had 4 regular sized cross members and 1 larger size cross member) from its original centered mounting position to a location to the rear of the new axle. I had to make sure I placed the relocated cross-member far enough back that I could get a wrench inside of the closed-in areas at the axle mounts for when I need to re-torque the axle mount fasteners. I then removed the rearmost cross member, extended the frame length with the two longer pieces cut from the cross-member, drilled many new holes, repainted the new holes, and bolted it all together. By using existing holes in the main 8' length of frame and the extension pieces I ended up making the trailer 9' 3/4" long instead of the original 8'. My target had been 9', but the strength will be a little better as by going an extra 3/4" long I avoided adding some more holes, some of which would have overlapped existing holes.
Here's what I ended up with after the weekend's work, a new torsion axle with brakes and 1' 3/4" additional trailer frame length:
Next up will be installing some of the trailer wiring: the 7-pin trailer cable, a frame-mounted junction box, brake wiring, and a break-away switch. Then I can finally get to the real build by making my floor.