I've got a pretty heavy duty 25' triple axle flatbed trailer that I haul tractors around on. I really like it, but it came with trailer house style axles.
Between just about wearing the rims, tires, bearings, etc, out - and wanting to move up to more modern wheels, I recently bought 3 7,000 pound new axles with electric brakes and with 8 bolt pattern wheel hubs.
In all my checking (axle vendor experts, internet, measuring rims, etc), everything pointed to the older (92-94) Ford F250 8 bolt wheel rims fitting these axles. I've got plenty of spares from retired pickups, so I thought this would be a great idea.
So I went down to Lubbock, picked up the axles and got them home - and while the older F250 wheel rims DO fit - the lug bolts on these new hubs seem to be one size smaller diameter than the Ford wheel hub studs. The wheel rim will move around on the hub about 1/8th of an inch or so.
The nuts tighten the wheel on the hub OK, but I'm worried that these really aren't quite made for each other.
Has anyone run into this before?? I'm wondering about knocking the studs out of the new hubs, drilling the holes out slightly, and pounding in larger studs... Not sure if I wound up with some oddball axles, (they were from a major, well established regional vendor) or if these wheels will work fine and I'm just over analyzing it...
Thanks for any advice,
Howard