The axles are here!

Very little research or deliberation went into this decision. . . . No, seriously, I lost a fair amount of sleep over this one even though Ryan had done a ton of research for his trailer before I even began contemplating the axles. In the end, I decided on the same Dexter Torflex axle (albeit with very different ratings) that Ryan used on his Flying Cloud and placed my order three weeks ago at Six Robblees.

I would have liked to have placed the axle order much earlier and had them on hand as soon as we had the frame stripped, but before I decided on axles, I really wanted to see the condition and build of the frame. I also wanted to be completely sure I had the measurements correct. So, it was very helpful to wait until everything was exposed before taking the final axle measurements.

One huge concern of mine was that the original axles were mounted so close to the frame that when I changed out the old 14.5 x 7 inch wheels and bias ply tires for a 15 x 6 wheel with 225 75 R15 tires, there was very little room between the back of the tire and the frame. As a result, one of the shock mounts was so close that it was rubbing on the front curbside tire and caused a blowout. My friend Jeff who towed the Captain home from San Diego, had to knock off that shock mount to get the trailer home, but I still noticed some damage to the tire from the remaining bolt. You can see the remainder of that shock mount just behind the forward hub in this picture.

To provide added clearance in case I add shocks to the new axles, I decided to increase the hub face dimension (distance from hub face to hub face) about 3/4 inch on each side. But before we did this, I had to be sure we would have enough clearance in the wheel wells. I came up with a pretty simple test. Since I knew we would gain at least 3-5 inches in height with the new axles, I placed the wheel wells on the trailer frame with 2 1/2" blocks (bricks in this test) between the frame and the wheel wells. To simulate the change in hub face dimension, we placed the wheel wells in 3/4 inch. And then I put the wheel back on.

I had no problem at all putting the wheel on or taking it off without touching the wheel well. The tires also had plenty of clearance all around when mounted front or rear. So, I went ahead and ordered the axles 1 1/2 inches wider than the originals. Although I'm fairly confident in my unscientific tire clearance test, I will probably continue to stress about this until I see the shell back on the frame and can really check things out.

When I ordered the axles, the Six Robblees sales guy told me it would be at least 5 to 6 weeks before they arrived. That had me a bit worried since Ryan's pace was clearly going to have him ready for the axles in much less than 5 to 6 weeks. To make sure we didn't hold up the entire project waiting for the axles, we went ahead and ordered the mounting brackets separately and began planning to install the brackets without the axles. But yesterday, a day short of three weeks after I placed the order, Six Robblees called to tell me the plates had arrived - bolted to the axles!

After picking up the axles, Ryan finished up the frame modifications to support the new axles. He added two eight foot stiffening plates to the inside edges of the frame and then re-installed the cross members in that area. Just days earlier, he had removed several cross members in anticipation of this work.

Once the frame modifications were done, we were ready for the axles. So, it was a very nice surprise to get those in so quickly.

While we have the frame upside down, Ryan also welded on new safety chains (the ends are just tucked into the tongue right now to keep them out of the way).

Now that the axles are on, the next step is . . . well repairing the step. If all goes well over the next couple days, we could be painting the frame next week.