Aristocrat Lowering Wheels

My guess is that 99% of these accessories have been left in garages and eventually tossed out years ago by well-meaning people that had no idea what they were.

Many low-cost trailers built during the 1950's and 60's were built with "take off new parts" from cars.  It's not unusual to find Kelsey-Hayes (Ford Motor Company) wheels originally on vintage trailers.  If it has the five-bolt pattern it was likely a 5 on 4.5" (five holes with a 4 1/2" bolt circle.  This was a common Ford Wheel on the cars built with V-8 engines.  If it was a four-bolt pattern. it was a wheel off of one of Fords compact Uni-Body models with a six-cylinder engine like a Falcon, Comet, Mustang, Mavrick, etc.

Just find some old crusty wheels that still have good lug holes with the bolt circle pattern that matches your trailer hubs.  The wheel centers are usually spot welded about 20 times to outer rims.  Center punch the spot welds on the rim.  If you drill them in a drill press and use a larger drill bit size, you will not need to drill all the way through.  Just drill out the spot welds until they release the rim.  Go to your metal supply and buy a 1/8" by 2" flat strip of metal.  If you have a buddy with a metal roller, have him roll you two hoops in the diameter of the wheel centers.  If you do not have access to a roller, the 1/8" by 2" is pretty flexible and you can tack weld the strap to the wheel center.  Mount the wheel center on your trailer and roll the trailer back over the flat bar using the weight of the trailer and the radius of the wheel center to bend your flat bar.

A 110v MIG welder is plenty strong enough for welding 1/8" metal.  It will be a fun project and yield a useful tool.

John

I'm thinking that finding a pair of donor "wheels" that have your trailer's matching bolt circle pattern in the centers might be the easy part of this project.

Your going to need to have, or at least have access to a drill press, drill bits, a MIG welder, and a roller to fabricate the new hoops.

Maybe farm the small job out to a Buddy?

John

This might be dumb, but would something like this work: www.etrailer.com/Trailer-Tires-and-Wheels/Americana/AM20016.html

I have a work friend who knows a welder so I'm thinking I have that connection.

Would it be possible to take the wheels off and roll the trailer on the brake drums? But that may be limited by the the ends of the U bolts on the axle. If the U-bolts extend beyond the radius of the drum, then it won't work.

This isn't my idea. Someone suggested this in a thread burried here years ago.

Another idea might be if you can find a pair of space saver wheels that are used for spare tires on cars.  If you can find some with the same bolt pattern but smaller diameter, you might be able to use that. The center bore will have to clear the axle, though. Maybe remove the tire off the rim and roll it out on the space saver spare rims? But, again, the radius would have to extend past the ends of the U bolts of the axle. I picked up  some space saver spares for about $20 each on CL back 8 years ago for a trailer project, but for a different use.

How much drop do you need?  Could airing down the tires help?

Cheers,

Rod