Thread: Six wheel studs to five wheel studs - why is it so hard?

Originally Posted by Graeme

What does the loaded trailer weigh, Baz?

About 1.2t to 1.4t depending on the length of the trip, mostly it's just more food put in for the longer trips, the axle is 45mm square with Ford heavy duty bearings, changed the bearings about 2yrs ago along with the leaf springs, I went with 9 leaf rebounds this time, just to lift the trailer a bit.

I check the trailer before every trip.

Baz.

That's well within the design load for the bearings and tyre diameter. I'll probably end-up using the same but want to persue the parallel bearing setup some more.

Originally Posted by Redback

About 1.2t to 1.4t depending on the length of the trip, mostly it's just more food put in for the longer trips, the axle is 45mm square with Ford heavy duty bearings, changed the bearings about 2yrs ago along with the leaf springs, I went with 9 leaf rebounds this time, just to lift the trailer a bit.

I check the trailer before every trip.

Baz.

Just wondering how often you re-torque your wheel nuts?! If they are tight you shouldn't really ever have problems with the wheel locating on a trailer, however mine will always be done properly because I've seen an alloy with flogged out holes from not being located, I just build everything to match how it is OEM. If it was a heavy trailer like a caravan you would have problems though. Like those BBS wheels I've seen that snapped the studs on a Disco 3 on this forum.

Cheers
Will

Originally Posted by MR LR jnr.

Just wondering how often you re-torque your wheel nuts?! If they are tight you shouldn't really ever have problems with the wheel locating on a trailer, however mine will always be done properly because I've seen an alloy with flogged out holes from not being located, I just build everything to match how it is OEM. If it was a heavy trailer like a caravan you would have problems though. Like those BBS wheels I've seen that snapped the studs on a Disco 3 on this forum.

Cheers
Will

Once or twice over the years, the only problem I've ever had was when I changed a wheel and forgot to do the wheel nuts up, I some how got distracted, luckly a passing 4WD alerted me to it, other than that, nothing.

I'm not a dill, I have been driving and towing trailers for over 30yrs, I don't just bung things on and hope for the best.

My suggestion for this would be to buy a blank hub from AL-KO or someone else, in whatever size you need and go to the nearest engineering shop or trailer manufacturer and have the holes drilled to match the M14 studs in 120 PCD, some will refuse because they will only do 9/16 (the closest size) but some will, 9/16 is no big deal really if that's all they will do, just mean you have to carry differant spare wheel nuts for the trailer and maybe use steel rims.

The trouble with AL-KO is they are still in the 70s and won't do anything metric, same with most trailer places, ridiculous really.

Baz.

I've bitten the bullet and ordered blank parallel bearing 1600 kg ASTSS hub-drums that will be machined and drilled to take 14 mm studs to allow fitment of the X5 rims, after having the opportunity to feel the amount of metal in the boss and encouraged by a local trailer workshop. LR rims may require a spacer because of their small cap diameter but I'll sort that out once the initial machining is done.

Originally Posted by Graeme

I've bitten the bullet and ordered blank parallel bearing 1600 kg ASTSS hub-drums that will be machined and drilled to take 14 mm studs to allow fitment of the X5 rims, after having the opportunity to feel the amount of metal in the boss and encouraged by a local trailer workshop. LR rims may require a spacer because of their small cap diameter but I'll sort that out once the initial machining is done.

You'll need a spacer otherwise they wont go over the hubcap (fowls on the alloy), was either 12 or 16mm from memory, and we made them from aluminium, just used longer studs.

Cheers
Will

The X5 rims are deeper and have a larger hub cap so I'm hoping not to use spacers on them, only likely for LR rims. Small spacers will be needed to allow for the LR greater positive offset and wider rims anyway. 45 mm studs should do for the X5 rims with standard acorn nuts but may need 50 mm studs for LR rims and nuts depending on how the machining goes and resultant spacer width. With studs $10 each I wont be ordering them without knowing what length is required.

You'd be best to set it up for the LR rims (assuming so you can run the car's spare?!?) and make the BWM rims work with that. The spacers aren't practical to take on and off sorta thing, so its a one shot kind of deal i recommend.

Do they have the same size centre spigot or do the BWM rims locate on tapered nuts?

Cheers
Will