5 foot axle on a 4 foot trailer?

[Krusty]

I'm getting ready to place an order for a Dexter axle to replace the leaf spring axle on my Harbor Freight trailer. While figuring out the measurements and whatnot, it looks like I need to supply the mounting bracket width as well as the hub face width. If I specify the hub face width to be a bit larger than normal, does this mean I'll receive a longer axle (still with the right bracket location) which will give me a bit more room to widen the bed of my teardrop without needing to notch out space for the tires?

What impact would this have on the stresses on the axle itself? It it safe, common, recommended? The main reason I'm thinking about this is that I really need the interior to be at least 4 feet wide. with 1" thick walls, my 4 foot wide trailer is only 3'10" inside. If I added 3"-5" of axle length that would give me just enough space to widen the trailer to be a bit over 4 feet wide inside.

[alaska teardrop]

If you can read the first topic in this forum, your question will be answered.

[Krusty]

I've read through a pretty hefty amount of these threads but haven't come across anything that could specifically answer my question; that's why I posted this thread.

Perhaps the answer used to be there but is now a dead link. There's quite a few links to dead PDF files scattered around the older posts.

[alaska teardrop]

The maximum overhang for a #8 axle is 9.04" per side. 48" + 9.04" + 9.04" = 66.08" hub to hub.

The maximum overhang for a #9 axle is 10.90" per side. 48" + 10.90" + 10.90" = 69.8" hub to hub.