Wheel Well Woes

[PcHistorian]

I have the unfortunate position in that the tires the trailer came with are great for load, but way bigger than was originally designed for. I do want to keep the tires and wheels. I want to change the wells/fender arrangement. (especially since I already hit a bump and broke the welds on one of the fenders. As you can see, the front and back hit before the top would hit.



I am planning on currently putting a 1" thick piece of plywood into the gap where the fender was.
2 reasons.
1. I want a better seal on the insulation there in the wheel well, than flapping in the wind inside a fender, as originally built.


2. The 1" surface should be flush with the vinyl siding so I can remount the fender up higher. I want to mount "L" brackets (like for shelves) on the plywood, as high as I can. Then mount the fender on top of that. Hopefully gaining a few inches.

[Mikka]

These tires look ancient, I would check the date on them. Tires are not good for as long there is thread on them, They have an expiry date. Before, going any further, I would check them, decide if I need the same size if they have no life left and decide if it warrants making bigger fender wells. Just me thinking loud.

[Lancie49]

Yep, 6-7 yrs is the accepted life span on tyres down here.
The do degrade over time whether they are used or not.
Just 'cos they have tread, it doesn't mean they are OK.

http://blog.tirerack.com/blog/selecting ... -tires-are

http://20somethingfinance.com/how-old-a ... he-answer/

[PcHistorian]

so maybe keep the rims and get a shorter shorter tire, cuz I'd have to replace them anyway. with the same width I'd have the same cargo capacity, and I could just put the wood blocks on anyway to guard the foam inside the wheel well. That would be nice. then I could just weld that one well back on... Ok, so how much smaller in diameter should I make the new tires then? 60r-13? or something like that.... 50r, 40r-13. See I'm not sure what the original tire size was. and the previous owner is dead.
What should be my "minimum free space, loaded, between the tire and the wheel well/fender?" as you can see the sides would run here, before the tire bottomed out.

also, if you look at the tire you'll see where it was sunk and near flat into mud, so they weren't cared for very well either, even though they are holding air now.

[Lancie49]

Do you know what stud pattern the axle has ?
I'm inclined to think 13" are too big for those arches and I think I'd be dropping down to 12", possibly early Datsun ?
Can you take one of those rims to a wrecker to check the PTC ?

[PcHistorian]

ok, the distance on the lugs is 2-5/8", I'm going to try to find some 60-13 tires, lower diameter outside same rims. then I'll look low profile cool! :-)

these tires are marked 1238 and 1779 for manufacturing, which means about 1982 and 1993 for the tire age. (wow, they gotta be replaced!) They were cracking a bit, even though they still both had those little nub thingies on them to show the tire is newer and probably total tire depth, on the tread. Just dry rot. So off to belle tire. I'll check on a spare rim/tire while I'm there.
(dotsun might be a good guess, I found a romania bearing seal when I re-did the first bearing. who knows. I'll do the second bearings (repack) this pm. if the weather holds.)
off to a local alternator rebuilt place to check on some diode trio's for some fancy battery charging and set ups.

[PcHistorian]

ooops, guess that should be 4-1/2 and 13'. they must measure outside edges, instead of center to center.
belle tire is a no go. must wait for monday for local trailer tire place.

I do like the 60r-13 idea though.

smallest belle tire had was an 80r-13

[PcHistorian]

155-13 is the smallest that a local company lists, which might be fine but they don't carry them. :-(
back to looking around.
what size does everyone else use?

[2bits]

You are mentioning xxx 13 I am wondering, does that mean this is a 13" Wheel? It does not look like a 13" Wheel. It looks like a 15" wheel. If so, you could go with a 14" Wheel and a shorter tire and reduce both. I know that totally kills your plan of keeping the wheel and making the fender bigger though. Making the fender bigger is definitely a viable option.

I have a set of tires and wheels from my '73 Monte Carlo and it kills me because the tires still have the same little nubbies on them, but they are dry rotted and not good for anything but to have on a car while it sits in a field. What a waste eh! Definitely replace em because you don't want to blow a tire throw you into a spin and have the trailer tear off of the hitch and.. well. you know...

[PcHistorian]

Yeah, to put the trailer size into perspective, these tires are 78-13's. So 13" rim. I wish it was a 15" tire and all I had to do is go 14". I got plenty of those around, too, spares for my little pick-em up truck.

I wouldn't make the fender bigger if I didn't have to, to keep the 13" rims. Everybody has 80-13's, 78-13's, nobody has 60-13's (what is with the car industry. I guess the cars are smaller and don't take the weight a trailer would, so no trailer tires that size.)

Next, do they have a 5 hole trailer sized patterened 12" rim and tire for my axel? (the original builder might not have figured to put a travel trailer inside the build, just to use it as a mobile vinyl siding demo...

I can probably raise the wheel well/fender about 1.5 inches, which should do it and not mar the design, overall. Next I should probably put on mud flaps though. I've even been considering redoing the fenders in wood or fiber coated panels. (that shower stall wall stuff. I've got lots of that laying around.

[PcHistorian]

Ok , I've pretty much solved my wheel well woes, which were two fold.

1. the original builder didn't cover the foam insulation in the walls, under the wheel wells. So the foam insulation was exposed to the sticks and stones, rain, ice and snow (road salt) and it didn't fair well. So I chose to get a 1" think piece of plywood. Seal it to extremes (poly and caulk) then mount it in the wheel wells behind the tire to seal in the wall insulation. (I had tried to seal all the walls with caulk, which worked everywhere but the wheel well where there was nothing outside to hold the wall in, and the caulk to the wall...








2. Part two which was more agonizing to fix yet took only a few minutes to resolve once I finally figured it out.
My ST78R-13's were too large and rubbing the wheel well at maxed out loading and bumps. No smaller circumference 13" tires are readily available. Even the 12"ers are not common to regular tire centers. So to go with "I want tires readily available and to hold a great load" I had to do something about the wheel well rubbing. Well the start of the fix was, take a hacksaw to the wheel well and "flair it" where it was rubbing, which turned out to only be the backs. If that doesn't do it then I'll put in heavier leaf springs. This way I have easy to replace, heavy hauling tires. (I even repacked my bearing while I was in there. Been a while since I done those. Fun-greasey! :-) AS you can see below, I went a few inches beyond where the rubbing was occurring, with the cut and flair. The cut is as close to the outer wall of vinyl siding I could get.




might not notice if I didn't point it out. some smoothing to go but ready for a field test.
maybe some mud flaps.
:-)

[2bits]

Glad you found a solution to both problems that didn't require a huge project!!

[emiller]

I had sort of the same issue with tire size. I went from 12 to 13" because I wanted baby moons. I found 145/60R13 (19.2" dia) from a electric car parts company in Grants Pass, OR. Well I think that place closed so now I have found wide white wall tires from Diamondback Tire that are 155/80/R13 (22.8" dia) that will fit. A little pricey at $168.00 each. You can look into electric vehicle tires because going with a larger tire is not good on the electric motors so they sell low profile tires. Also I think Austrailia has smaller diameter tires.
http://tnttt.com/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=41752

[PcHistorian]

Ok, next sequence is the resolution of the wheel well woes...
hide the flaws with some scheme - theme paint jobs... ;-)

and a new paint scheme
garden and lawn (never needs mowing ;-)




Since the 80r13's are a common tire at both tire and trailer stores, I have this resolved in a replaceable manner.
I've decided to put the spare at the front, under the tongue. Otherwise it'd go IN the tongue box, which will be shaped and camouflaged as a hedge.
I did want a deep charge battery and it ain't going inside the trailer. Plus a little extra storage would really be welcome. (I have a windmill to store for power, too. ;-)

[bonnie]

That's a great solution. Well done!