Question for the forum. I have substantial outside wear on my front passenger tire (photo of both passenger side tires below for comparison). I replaced all four with Good Year Endurance tires last summer, they have around 10,000 miles on them. I have Lippert 5200 pound axles. I broke a rear drivers side spring hanger a few years ago. My buddy is an ironworker and we welded and boxed in the hangers after that. I have upgraded my shackles and equalizers to the MorRyde SRE4000 and heavy duty shackles with the crossbar. I generally find it tows fine. I am going to weigh on the way home, but I had it done at the national rally last year and my wheel weights were all similar, and I was right at the GVRW of the rig. I have done some mods since then and would bet I am probably running a bit over.
I am assuming I have bent my front axle, probably the spindle since the other side is wearing normally (no photo as its buried under my slideout at the moment). For background, we are not really looking to trade rigs in the near future, but thinking a Solitude (maybe the new 378 mid bunk) in 2-3 years, but we do put on a lot of miles, 10,000 per year seems average, and in the life of this rig we are thinking we will do Alaska.
Looks like I have three options and I know some on here have done at least some of these so I am curious on peoples thoughts. In no particular order:
I could just replace the axle, I would think with a Dexter 6,000 pound axle. My ironworker buddy seems to think I would not necessarily need to replace both, it should not matter that the capacities are different. Another option would be to change both obviously, which I may do since we would have it tore apart anyway.
Related to that, I could also take this opportunity to upgrade to 16" wheels and tires. I run a Goosebox now with 7" of clearance, but got into a nasty site a couple months ago and had the rig come down on the bed. Very minor damage to both, but has me thinking I would like more clearance. B&W makes a raised gooseball, but I would be off level then, so the bigger tires would help with that, and give me some more weight capacity. I realize other components would then be my "weak link", and nothing will change my GVRW, but at least I would have faith in my tires and axles. I do already have the 2" spacers between the frame and axles, so 16" tires should be no issue.
The other option would be to go with the MorRyde IS with disc brakes, it is a pricy option, but those that have it seem to love it. I think howson had an issue with alignment, which sounded like a pain to deal with, but did end up being covered, so at least resolved. In this case I would definitely make the move to 16" wheels and tires, and probably 8 stud wheels at that, so that is going to add to the cost even more. I am working up a spreadsheet, but since I can do the axle swap myself, even if I decided to do disk brakes as well it will probably be about double to go the MorRyde route, but that is obviously an IS vs staying with leaf springs.
I guess my questions are twofold, first and most obviously does everyone agree that tire wear is a bent axle. Pressure is good, 75 all around, and bearing temps are good. I replaced all of the with Timkins when I replaced the tires, they are due to be repacked after this trip, which would be part of the axle work, but I do not think they are my issue.
Second if we agree its an axle issue, what are peoples thoughts on the IS particularly for my fairly light fifth wheel.
Thanks everyone!
I am assuming I have bent my front axle, probably the spindle since the other side is wearing normally (no photo as its buried under my slideout at the moment). For background, we are not really looking to trade rigs in the near future, but thinking a Solitude (maybe the new 378 mid bunk) in 2-3 years, but we do put on a lot of miles, 10,000 per year seems average, and in the life of this rig we are thinking we will do Alaska.
Looks like I have three options and I know some on here have done at least some of these so I am curious on peoples thoughts. In no particular order:
I could just replace the axle, I would think with a Dexter 6,000 pound axle. My ironworker buddy seems to think I would not necessarily need to replace both, it should not matter that the capacities are different. Another option would be to change both obviously, which I may do since we would have it tore apart anyway.
Related to that, I could also take this opportunity to upgrade to 16" wheels and tires. I run a Goosebox now with 7" of clearance, but got into a nasty site a couple months ago and had the rig come down on the bed. Very minor damage to both, but has me thinking I would like more clearance. B&W makes a raised gooseball, but I would be off level then, so the bigger tires would help with that, and give me some more weight capacity. I realize other components would then be my "weak link", and nothing will change my GVRW, but at least I would have faith in my tires and axles. I do already have the 2" spacers between the frame and axles, so 16" tires should be no issue.
The other option would be to go with the MorRyde IS with disc brakes, it is a pricy option, but those that have it seem to love it. I think howson had an issue with alignment, which sounded like a pain to deal with, but did end up being covered, so at least resolved. In this case I would definitely make the move to 16" wheels and tires, and probably 8 stud wheels at that, so that is going to add to the cost even more. I am working up a spreadsheet, but since I can do the axle swap myself, even if I decided to do disk brakes as well it will probably be about double to go the MorRyde route, but that is obviously an IS vs staying with leaf springs.
I guess my questions are twofold, first and most obviously does everyone agree that tire wear is a bent axle. Pressure is good, 75 all around, and bearing temps are good. I replaced all of the with Timkins when I replaced the tires, they are due to be repacked after this trip, which would be part of the axle work, but I do not think they are my issue.
Second if we agree its an axle issue, what are peoples thoughts on the IS particularly for my fairly light fifth wheel.
Thanks everyone!
Comment