Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

I know I am going to have to get new wheels to fit into my fenders. I wonder if I should have built wider to get the wall closer to the hub face? As you can see from the picture (don't laugh at my home made plumb bobs) the distance between the outside wall and the hub face is 7 inches. From the hub face to the inside edge of the fender is 2 1/2 inches. Correct me if I'm wrong, I can use 6 inch wheels with 4 1/2 inch back space?




Scott F.

Scott, forgive me if I'm wrong here,but, a 6" wheel will accommodate a 7" tyre, 5" a 6" etc.
If this was my trailer I would either move the walls out or, better option, buy another axle. Keep the axle you have for build Number2

Cheers
Paul

You coulda moved your walls out a couple of inches which woulda moved your fenders out a couple of inches which in turn woulda let you use wheels with nearly 0 offset.
As it stands, you are correct.

Nitetimes wrote:You coulda moved your walls out a couple of inches which woulda moved your fenders out a couple of inches which in turn woulda let you use wheels with nearly 0 offset.
As it stands, you are correct.

yeah...what Rich said!!!.............................

from what I'm seeing your going to have to use a Rim from a front wheel drive car with disk brakes, because you have no room between the center line of the tire and where your fender is..your hub face needs to be closer to the wall or your fenders need to be wider..or both.

The easiest way to correct the offset may be to have a custom wheel made. You may want to check out this site and get in touch with them.... They can do any wheel diameter/width/center offset/ lug pattern...

http://customcommercialwheel.com/

Just measure carefully when determining off set of center section...

Rough guess is you need a 2 1/4 inch POSITIVE offset (from center line) to make things right.

http://www.rsracing.com/tech-wheel.html

So for example if you are using a 6 inch wide rim, you need a 5 1/4 inch (from rear of rim edge to bolting face) rear spacing or back spacing to center wheel/tire under fender...

Other option is about a 4 1/2 inch shorter axle(using 0 offset wheels).

Dale

If you are going to be using a rubber torsion axle (I can't tell from the photos) and you want to use a wheel with lots of backspace, you'll need to check that it doesn't foul the suspension arm. Here is a diagram showing the potential problem:



That is a 16" Jeep wheel on a #9 Dexter axle, which has a 6" long arm. Other axles may be no problem:
- Flexiride, 4 1/2" length arm;
- Dexter #9, 4" length arm;
but you should still check.

Andrew

I used a set of front wheel drive mags with a 5 on 4.5 hole pattern 15" I have about 1/2" clearance on the swing arm I did have to machine out the center hole in the wheel to fit over the hub

this gives almost all the offset to the inside, narrows the track, and allows the fenders closer to the body.

Thanks everyone for the ideas. The axle is a Dexter#9 so thanks Andrew, I'll have to measure the swing arm as well. The trailer is all but finished so that's not an option. The wheels that came with the axle are 14" with new tires. They hit the edge of the RW Johnson 11" fender.

I can get a used steel wheel from the junk yard for less then $10. I think I'll try that first and see how it fits.

Scott F.