Saturday, January 10, 2009

Standing on my own feet

Last week I thought I would replace the Chinese races in the new drums with the Timken ones I purchased, The inner one is the same but the outer one takes a larger O.D. bearing than was in the old Kesley Hayes drum.
I put in a call to Axis axle and told them of my predicament and they sent me out 4 new outer bearings and also sent 4 new seals for free.
I packed all the bearings and when I when to install the inner bearing I found that Rock Auto h
ad sent one of the wrong size. I gave them a call and they had the new bearing on my door step at 10:00 am the next morning.
I had three of the drums installed last week and today I put the last one on and got the wheels mounted, I didn't measure the before height but I bet I gained 2 more inches of height with the rebuilt axles. I can see the top of the tire through the wheel well now.

Total cost so far $547.00 and I still need to get the wheels\drums balanced and alignment checked. The local Airstream dealer does neither, I'll have to find a truck stop and get the wheels balanced and I will probably end up at the Airstream factory for the alignment check.
If I had to do it over again I would buy new axles from Axis axle
$600.00 for the pair and everything would have been included.

I only get about 3/4" of travel with the new torsion springs, I hope this is because there new and it's 15 degrees out, I have read on airforums there should be up to 2" of travel.

Jan 12 2009:
"Duh, maybe I don't get the travel because I have gutted the trailer sense taking the axles off."

I also noticed after getting the wheels on that the rear axle is about 2" longer than the front axle, on the street side the rear wheel sticks out farther than the front wheel 1-1/8" and on the curb side 3/4". The axle is not a replacement either as the serial numbers on the axles are only 3 numbers apart. It is also not because of tow in/out casper chamber, what ever it's called.

Here are some before and after pictures:



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