What are Critical Dimensions required to safely up-size to 16" rim and tires? 220RK

[Canyonlight]

I have a 2016 Reflection 303 RLS. It came with the 15" tires and rims as described above too. However, the newer 303 RLS comes with 16" tires and wheels. My neighbor has one so i can easily measure dimensions. It does not appear that GD changed anything on the axles between 2016 and the newer models. It appears that they just put on larger tires. Can anyone at GD confirm this. If I move to 16" tires, I can get a higher load range. I also bought a new 2020 Chevy 3500, and it sits higher. So now I have a slight nose up issue. The larger tires would equalize this I think. All of the measurements I have taken on my trailer with 15" vs my neighbors with 16" look essentially the same. I can match what my neighbor has, but would like to confirm with GD folks before I do this.

Tony - we had the GDRV factory service center add the 2" tubes to our 303 along with upgrading to 6K axles and 16" tires when we had our walls replaced in the spring of 2018. We did tow nose high with our truck and after this change we tow level. Early build 303s had "D" rated tires with a 2540 lbs. which actually had the effect of de-rating our 5200 lb. axles to 5080 as in picture 2. While we never had any tire issues, like you I wanted the added margin of the 16" tire capacity. See the pictures below.



Dan

[Cate&Rob]

Canyonlight
Hi Dan,
For some reason, your pictures in post 16 did not show up?
Rob

[d2reid]

Another factor that I have not seen mentioned yet is wheel offset. It's the position of the center of the wheel as it relates to the distance between the inside and outside edge of the wheel. I ran into this when I upgraded my 16" wheels to 17.5" wheels. Ok, I didn't find it, the guys that did the upgrade did, they were explaining why the job was delayed because they could not find wheels with the correct offset.

[Canyonlight]

Canyonlight
Hi Dan,
For some reason, your pictures in post 16 did not show up?
Rob

I don't know why Rob. The thumbnails were there when I posted and are still there when I looked just now. However, I cannot click on them to enlarge....hmmm ? I will try a new post and try again. Let me know if you see or do not see the two pictures in that post.

Dan

[Canyonlight]

Lets see of the pictures that were to be in my post #16 work this time.

Dan

[Cate&Rob]

Lets see of the pictures that were to be in my post #16 work this time.

Dan

Hi Dan,
These two pictures have thumbnails and enlarge when clicked on.
Post 16 has four small blue squares with question marks.
Rob

[Yoda]

Another factor that I have not seen mentioned yet is wheel offset. It's the position of the center of the wheel as it relates to the distance between the inside and outside edge of the wheel. I ran into this when I upgraded my 16" wheels to 17.5" wheels. Ok, I didn't find it, the guys that did the upgrade did, they were explaining why the job was delayed because they could not find wheels with the correct offset.

Wheel offset should be zero like the originals unless the side wall clearance was tight to begin with. What offset did your installers use??

[Yoda]

Hi Dan,
These two pictures have thumbnails and enlarge when clicked on.
Post 16 has four small blue squares with question marks.
Rob

Rob - curious - I only see two squares (not blue) in post 16. Two photos do show up and work in his second try.
Using Firefox and Windows 10 pro if that makes a difference. Could yourr gremlin have gotten loose from the other post??

Keith

[GDRV-Megan]

Perfect input. I will wait to see what GD may post. In the meantime, I will go out and look to see if it has the 2" tube added. My secondary thought is to move my kingpin box down (I think there are one or two hole positions lower). to bring the nose back down. I drag my tail in some of the areas I go camping in due to my bike rack on the back. That did not happen until the new truck My old 2003 Chevy 2500 sat a bit lower and had no problem with tail drag. Interesting that the bed height from the bottom of the bed to the top of the rails stayed about the same. It is a 3500 4WD with 20" wheels which makes it overall taller than older models.

The other problem I already dealt with on my new truck was that Chevy changed the puck positions on the 2020 from the earlier trucks and nobody had yet made adapters to fit the new puck positions. I bought the truck last November just after they came out. Had to wait several weeks to even be able to put in my hitch from my old truck.

the only difference I'm aware of is that we went from Lippert to Dexter axles.

[Yoda]

Update
I got the new ST235/80R16 Goodyear Endurance tires installed on the 16" wheels. Good fit, leveled out the rig and better towing based on a the short trip home from tire store.


I still have good clearances all around and the Sumo Springs will prevent contact with the floor.

Just wanted to close this thread out.

Keith

Wheels are these http://sendelwheel.com/wheels/t13.html T13-665655BM
I got them through recstuff - best price at the time - shop around. https://recstuff.com/

[tgodrich]

Hi folks. I chimed in here a while back on getting 16" wheels and tires on my 2016 303RLS. After much research, I determined I could do this with no clearance problems on my rig. I finally pulled the trigger and did it. Bought Sendel T03 wheels and Goodyear Endurance tires (the Sendels were on back order for 3 months). All works well after several campouts.

I measured my rear leveler clearance before and after the new wheels and the new wheels raised the levelers by about 1.5". This also helped my rig to be more level front to back when on my 2020 Chevy 3500. It was nose high with the 15" wheels. My main motivator for making the switch was that when backing the trailer into my side yard, I must go up a curb. With the new truck raising the front, the levelers were now about 1/4" too low to clear the curb (learned this when I hit one of them and slightly bent it). Was able to straighten the leveler, but this gave me the motivation I needed to get the 16" wheels. No problems with curb clearance now.

[Canyonlight]

Hi folks. I chimed in here a while back on getting 16" wheels and tires on my 2016 303RLS. After much research, I determined I could do this with no clearance problems on my rig. I finally pulled the trigger and did it. Bought Sendel T03 wheels and Goodyear Endurance tires (the Sendels were on back order for 3 months). All works well after several campouts.

I measured my rear leveler clearance before and after the new wheels and the new wheels raised the levelers by about 1.5". This also helped my rig to be more level front to back when on my 2020 Chevy 3500. It was nose high with the 15" wheels. My main motivator for making the switch was that when backing the trailer into my side yard, I must go up a curb. With the new truck raising the front, the levelers were now about 1/4" too low to clear the curb (learned this when I hit one of them and slightly bent it). Was able to straighten the leveler, but this gave me the motivation I needed to get the 16" wheels. No problems with curb clearance now.

Tony - curious, does your 303 have the 2" tubes welded to the frame where the axle spring hangers mount ? I cannot recall when GDRV started adding these to builds.......thinking 2016 sometime in the spring. This was done to allow for 16" wheels/tires clearance at the time 16" wheels/tires which later became standard as the 15" wheels/tires were eliminated.

Dan

[tgodrich]

Tony - curious, does your 303 have the 2" tubes welded to the frame where the axle spring hangers mount ? I cannot recall when GDRV started adding these to builds.......thinking 2016 sometime in the spring. This was done to allow for 16" wheels/tires clearance at the time 16" wheels/tires which later became standard as the 15" wheels/tires were eliminated.

Dan

Yes it does. I found out to look for them on this forum. I think they began to add them mid 2016 from what I can gather. I would not have the necessary clearance for the 16" setup without them. I did extensive comparison of my rig vs. my neighbor's 2018 303RLS with his 16" wheels and mine is pretty much identical identical now.

[Canyonlight]

QUOTE=tgodrich;n62722]

Yes it does. I found out to look for them on this forum. I think they began to add them mid 2016 from what I can gather. I would not have the necessary clearance for the 16" setup without them. I did extensive comparison of my rig vs. my neighbor's 2018 303RLS with his 16" wheels and mine is pretty much identical identical now.[/QUOTE]

Tony , thanks for the feedback ! We also had the 2" tubes added to our 2014 when the GDRV factory service center replaced our walls and upgraded our axles to 6L along with 16" wheels and tires. LCI (the frame manufacturer) actually came to the GDRV factory to do it as I recall. Ours too sits level now.......glad we got it done.

Here's a couple pictures after the work was done and before leaving the FSC in June, 2018.


Dan