SkyHog
Touchdown! Greaser!
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2005
- Messages
- 18,431
- Location
- Castle Rock, CO
- Display Name
Display name:
Everything Offends Me
What a giant pain in the ass this was....
A few days ago, I was pulling my race car out to the practice facility. I got around the corner, heard a pop, and looked in the rear view mirror to see that my hauler's wheel was wobbling like it was going to fall off. I pulled over and checked, and there was metal fatigue and a failed center post, so I figured I better return home to fix it.
I'm really glad I did, because as I learned, there was nothing holding the wheel on anymore as the center post had failed in such a way that when I jacked up the trailer, I pulled the wheel and hub off in one piece without removing any fasteners or cotter pins.
This wheel design was beyond comprehension. Basically, it is an old Dexstar wheel, which has a star shaped cutout in the wheel that is filled with the hub. The wheel is fastened to the hub with 4 bolts (not lug nuts). At first, I had no idea what happened, but as I began trying to fix it, I think I put together the story on how it failed:
The inner bearing must have seized. When it did, the hub began to overheat over time, and in turn, after a recent 2 hour drive to the race track in Ft. Morgan, CO (plus another 2 hours back), heated up so much that it quite literally fused itself to the wheel in a fashion similar to welding. It then heated so much that the inner post started to fatigue, and upon pulling out of my parking spot, where there is a pothole, the wheel finally had enough stress to just break that post out.
Here's where the fun begins. The one piece that remained intact and attached to the axle was the spindle nut (and also the seized inner seal, which I'll get to in a moment). I tried all of my axle sockets, but none seemed to fit - this thing was huge. I measured it at 45mm, so I ran off to go buy a new socket. Turns out, it was 1 3/4". But - it was seized onto the axle pretty hardcore. I sprayed penetrating oil on it and left it overnight, but was still unable to budge the damned thing. So I did the best thing I could think of: I threw it on my impact gun and started backing it out.
Fun side story - I have a 40 gallon air compressor that puts out 150PSI. I went through 4 full tanks of air before I got that stupid spindle nut off. It never loosened - I had to impact it all the way off the spindle.
So - that out of the way, all I had to do was remove the inner bearing seal. Unfortunately, no matter how hard I tried, that thing was not coming off. I tried a chisel, I tried hammering a flathead screwdriver under it, nothing. I wound up using a cutoff tool and my air compressor and cut the damned thing until it finally sprang free enough to come off.
But now - where can I find a replacement hub that is as bizarre as this design was? The answer is nowhere. So I had to go buy a new style hub and make it fit. Thankfully, the spindle was a close enough fit to make a 1 3/8" hub fit it with some liberal greasing and a lot of finagling. But now, I have a new style hub and no wheel to go on it.
Thankfully, discount tire happened to have a 15" x 5 on 4.5 wheel sitting around, so I took my old wheel over and had them swap the tire onto the new wheel, but not before convincing the dude that bias ply tires are not "Too old to be street legal."
Now, I have one side of my trailer with a good, new wheel and hub, and the other side sitting, just waiting to fail. Next weekend, I'll probably swap it out too. What should have been an hour or 2 job turned into at least 8 hours of work. But I wouldn't trade it for anything - this is some of the most fun stuff to work on!
Some pictures below - the first two are the before pictures. The last two are the after pictures.
A few days ago, I was pulling my race car out to the practice facility. I got around the corner, heard a pop, and looked in the rear view mirror to see that my hauler's wheel was wobbling like it was going to fall off. I pulled over and checked, and there was metal fatigue and a failed center post, so I figured I better return home to fix it.
I'm really glad I did, because as I learned, there was nothing holding the wheel on anymore as the center post had failed in such a way that when I jacked up the trailer, I pulled the wheel and hub off in one piece without removing any fasteners or cotter pins.
This wheel design was beyond comprehension. Basically, it is an old Dexstar wheel, which has a star shaped cutout in the wheel that is filled with the hub. The wheel is fastened to the hub with 4 bolts (not lug nuts). At first, I had no idea what happened, but as I began trying to fix it, I think I put together the story on how it failed:
The inner bearing must have seized. When it did, the hub began to overheat over time, and in turn, after a recent 2 hour drive to the race track in Ft. Morgan, CO (plus another 2 hours back), heated up so much that it quite literally fused itself to the wheel in a fashion similar to welding. It then heated so much that the inner post started to fatigue, and upon pulling out of my parking spot, where there is a pothole, the wheel finally had enough stress to just break that post out.
Here's where the fun begins. The one piece that remained intact and attached to the axle was the spindle nut (and also the seized inner seal, which I'll get to in a moment). I tried all of my axle sockets, but none seemed to fit - this thing was huge. I measured it at 45mm, so I ran off to go buy a new socket. Turns out, it was 1 3/4". But - it was seized onto the axle pretty hardcore. I sprayed penetrating oil on it and left it overnight, but was still unable to budge the damned thing. So I did the best thing I could think of: I threw it on my impact gun and started backing it out.
Fun side story - I have a 40 gallon air compressor that puts out 150PSI. I went through 4 full tanks of air before I got that stupid spindle nut off. It never loosened - I had to impact it all the way off the spindle.
So - that out of the way, all I had to do was remove the inner bearing seal. Unfortunately, no matter how hard I tried, that thing was not coming off. I tried a chisel, I tried hammering a flathead screwdriver under it, nothing. I wound up using a cutoff tool and my air compressor and cut the damned thing until it finally sprang free enough to come off.
But now - where can I find a replacement hub that is as bizarre as this design was? The answer is nowhere. So I had to go buy a new style hub and make it fit. Thankfully, the spindle was a close enough fit to make a 1 3/8" hub fit it with some liberal greasing and a lot of finagling. But now, I have a new style hub and no wheel to go on it.
Thankfully, discount tire happened to have a 15" x 5 on 4.5 wheel sitting around, so I took my old wheel over and had them swap the tire onto the new wheel, but not before convincing the dude that bias ply tires are not "Too old to be street legal."
Now, I have one side of my trailer with a good, new wheel and hub, and the other side sitting, just waiting to fail. Next weekend, I'll probably swap it out too. What should have been an hour or 2 job turned into at least 8 hours of work. But I wouldn't trade it for anything - this is some of the most fun stuff to work on!
Some pictures below - the first two are the before pictures. The last two are the after pictures.
The things you learn when you enjoy buying things with trailers for cheap off craigslist.