Thread: Putting a Land Rover stud pattern on a boat trailer?

I changed a trailer bolt patten recently. Just brought a new- second hand- hub assembly and bolted it on with new bearings. Worked well and took all of 30 minutes. You need a good grease to repack the bearings! It cost me all of $40 to use the new (old) rims. I have a spare hub assembly on my spare tire incase of a bearing/ hub failure on my boat.

Think about bearing buddies as well- allows you to pump a bit more grease in and stops (much) salt water getting into the hub or bearings. If your a salt water man they are worth it to avoid or delay problems which occur to most our boat trailers.

Most boat trailers have under-rated axles for what they carry as the boat is never on the trailer when the trailer is presented for registration. They are usually round or square in section and rarely over 40mm in size. Depending on the bearings fitted to the hubs they usually only are rated up to about 1.5 Tonnes and need brakes if over 750Kg loaded weight.

Unless you already have 16" Toyota Land Cruiser wheels fitted the bearings in hubs to suit 13" to 15" rims are usually from Holden or Ford vehicle front wheels and cannot safely support the loads placed on them by the taller tyres - eg the leverage against the stub axle and bearings. Larger bearings can support heavier loads and the other forces involved.

Some enterprising machinist here could make a fortune making 50mm square axles in different lengths (particularly Series and Defender / Range Rover track widths) where the outer machined stub would slide inside a Series Land Rover or Range Rover stub axle and have a plate for it to bolt to. Then readily available brake backing plates, brakes and hubs could be fitted - presto Land Rover or Range Rover components under a trailer and a carrying capacity only limited by the square axle size (over 1.5 tonnes).

Have a look at the ALKO website for all the technical stuff. They do have off-the-shelf Land Rover hubs to fit certain of their axles. Here:
AL-KO Website then: AL-KO Website » Product Catalogue and Land Rover is here: AL-KO Website » Trailer Hubs (standard and galv. finish) - scroll down.

Alternatively, look at Vehicle Components site. (Owned by Arthur Goddard - the man who was the Engineer involved in the design of the first Land Rover!!!!)
home page
Hubs here: then Hubs

Bob

To use a LR wheel you need the LR hub and therefore the LR stub axle. The stub axle can be bolted up to your existing trailer axle if it has the same stud pattern for the flange on the stub. Most likely it won't but you could redrill the holes to match or put a new set of holes in to do the job. Not sure how heavy your boat and trailer are but generally boats have pretty light axles and springs and putting heavier hubs and wheels on a light axle might be a bit of a problem. I would be a bit inclined to make a heavier axle but then you will need bigger U bolts and would have to watch the clearance of the axle and spring travel. Be happy to have a look if you are near Geelong. I have done quite a bit of trailer building using surplus LR hubs and stubs and they make good strong trailer axles if you build them accordingly.

Download this cataloge and have a look at the hubs section this is what I got for my camper trailer and they work really well
Brad
http://www.trailerparts.net.au/assets/catalog.pdf

Depends on which LR stud pattern you want to use.

D2a has a Commodore pattern IIRC.

Lots of variables here.

To use a LR wheel you need the LR hub and therefore the LR stub axle.

Not so.

The change to different stud patterns isnt that difficult, but some more info on what you currently have would be helpful.
I.E current wheel tyre size, axle size, number and load rating, boat size and weight.

Fitting bigger wheels to boat trailers can make it too high and you end up with the tow vehicle in the water trying to get your boat on and off.
You need to consider if modifying guards is necessary and then interference with the hull etc. also.

Matching wheels on boat trailers can quckly become very inconvenient.

cheers

The issues raised above wrt wheel size are important - LR hubs are available and these should be able to be changed over quite easily - no need to change the axle. However the offset and rolling diameter of the wheel are important. If the current tyres are off road then there should be no issues with bearings, clearance of the guards or general lifting of the trailer. However if the wheels are normal car type just change to a low profile car tyre to fit on the LR 15 or 16 inch rim to keep the trailer at the same ride height. I have done this on trailers before and with the tyre sizes today it gives you a lot of height options with the trailer.

Um, I can answer a few more Q's. The full boat, outboard and trailer are about 1.2Tonne. The current wheels are not holden, ford or toyotas we have tried all three. The Mud guards are gonna come off and be modified. It is a 24ft aluminium long boat and atm the don't even need to get the rubber yet atm.
Maybe I'l try and replace the full springs, axels etc? do it once do it proper. Thanks very much for all the help boys. Will suit the Defender 110 style axel, might inquire at BOR.