Advice on Trailer Maintenance

[thejwalker]

My Jon Boat trailer is fairly old and was bought with the boat last year. In advance of a trip in which I'd be trailering ~800mi each way I wanted to do some routine maintenance by putting on new wheels, bearings, etc...

There didn't seem to be any issues with the old hubs outside of regular aging and the grease had obvious signs of age.

I decided to go ahead and replace the hub assembly, bearings, seals, wheels, tires, etc... Problem is that it's a 3/4" straight spindle and despite going to Northern Tool, TSC, AutoZone, O'Reilly's nobody has carried this assembly kit for some time.

In my discouragement I'm trying to decide what to do. Would it be dumb to just replace the bearings, grease and seals and hope for the best?

Long-term - should I find someone to weld on newer spindles with more readily available parts? Replace the entire Axle? Should I scrap the entire trailer and find a newer one?

I'd say the 14-ft flat-bottom only weights about ~150lbs empty and with regular boating cargo that stuff doesn't add another 50lbs or so. The wheel configuration is 5 bolt @ 4.5" spread. Tires are 8".

I don't have much experience with this type of stuff so I'd appreciate any guidance that can be given.

Thanks

[tkwalker]

Jon, what condition are the old bearings and seals ... What condition is the hub... Can you post pic's .... Yes, 3/4 inch straight spindles are obsolete, but your components may be still serviceable <'TK><

[Halli]

All of those are available from Lucky B' in Cookeville and they sell to many vendors and use the Heavy Truck folks in Nashville like FleetPride and TruckPro.

[skillet]

Northern tool and tsc have axles that are cheaper than having different spindles cut and welded on.


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