Truck dually wheels on tandem dually goose?

Clubbs

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 15, 2008
Location
Blounts Creek
Anyone put dodge or Chevy dually wheels on a 10 ton dexter axle. I'm looking at tires on the trailer and can get a set of (6) takes off pretty decently priced. I like that they are 17" e load instead of my 16". Anyone ever run this type of setup before? Pattern is 8 x 6.5 but I don't know if the stud is the same size. Surely someone has done this or else it's not possible right??? Maybe I'll be the only redneck with polished aluminum wheels for my rusty 10 ton... It's the start of a ratrod trailer trend
 
I think you're going to run in to differences in hub diameters and lug stud diameters. According to etrailer.com the rims to fix your trailer axles are 4.750 and use 5/8" studs. Earlier GM duallies had a hub size of 4.567 and used a 14x1.5 stud. Dodges have a 4.773 hub and some of the earlier ones used 5/8" studs, but it wouldn't be tight on the trailer hubs.

Anything new enough from GM to have 17" wheels on a dually will be the 8x210mm bolt pattern, so that kills that idea. Dodge used 17" dually rims from like 03 and up, but I'd guess their hub bores are still larger.

It sure would be nice to have radial tires on your trailer. The hot ticket would be 17.5" duals. You'd have almost 38,500 lbs of capacity on eight of those!
 
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I'd like a set of 17.5's but don't haul enough anymore to justify the cost. I have 4 new 16" tires I'm going to put on tomorrow. Fixed some wires on one brake and have 3 leaking seals so cleaning all that mess up so I have brakes again. Looking to buy 4 more tires soon.

I've heard about converting these oil bath axles to grease, but other than packing the bearings by hand how do you make sure they've got enough grease around them? My boat trailer spindle is hollow so the grease goes in the zerk and pushes it's way through the bearings and "floods" the hub. Of course I just blew up my fourth hub last time I was out with it... Dump triple axle trailers
 
Not sure about converting them to grease, but if I had to guess it'd be something like a bearing buddy cap that you'd grease...or something like that. It would just fill up the hub through the front bearing instead of going through a hollow spindle.
 
Later model (2nd gen and newer) Dodge wheels should work, the trailer wheels should have a 4.77" bore, the Dodge wheels are 4.78", you will just have to drill out the lug holes. Rickson wheel is a wealth of information, they do mostly 17.5/19.5 conversions but they have a ton of OE application information.
 
Croatan_Kid said:
Not sure about converting them to grease, but if I had to guess it'd be something like a bearing buddy cap that you'd grease...or something like that. It would just fill up the hub through the front bearing instead of going through a hollow spindle.
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Figure it would just push out the seal and I haven't been able to find a 4.5" threaded bearing buddy. I think everyone is just hand packing the bearings, I'm not brave enough for that, I'll keep the oil bath method for now unless this turns into a yearly event. Those seals are $40 a piece
 
Clubbs said:
I think everyone is just hand packing the bearings, I'm not brave enough for that,
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It's not hard, and it's the only way to know it's done right. The "EZ lube" spindles just dump grease into the hub body, they depend on heat to move the grease down to the bearing surfaces where it's actually needed.

Unless it's a boat trailer, I hand pack the bearings and then leave them the fuck alone.
 
At first I was slightly sad that the 8k axles on my trailer aren't oil bath, but I got over it real quick.
 
I only had one seal leaking out of 4 after all these years so I guess i'll leave them in the oil for now. One of my brake drums is out of round... its so bad I can see it oblonged. I've had a strange vibration that I thought was tires but nope its that drum. I have no idea how that happened. got to order a new hub and drum assembly now.
 
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