...because that's what I do when I'm not in a position to
use the thing I have.
One of the more offroad-oriented suggestions I've seen is to use a wheel bolt pattern the same on the trailer as on the truck, and to go even so far as to use the same wheels and tires if possible. My tow vehicle unfortunately has a wheel bolt pattern of 6 on 4.5", which as far as I can tell was never used on any trailer axle anywhere.
I was bored so I got down under my 174BH Baja, and it looks like the Baja-edition bump-stops fairly significantly limit travel despite the extra clearance and the excessive wheel-opening gap above the tire:
It looks like I have a Lippert 3500# axle:
For what it's worth I expect that other Jayco Jayflight SLX models with the same ~18' long quarters and 21'6" frame will have this axle part number.
It looks like there's a replacement
drum and hub assembly that would convert the trailer to 6 on 5.5".
So the wheels on the Nissan Frontier are 17x7.5. I happen to be running steel wheels that were intended as spares for all five wheels, and I have a sixth because I tend to pick them up when I find them cheap:
These wheels have a 30mm offset towards the face, with the 6 on 4.5" bolt pattern. As I understand it, the Lippert axle is meant for a wheel with zero offset. I subsequently found an adapter, which goes from
6 on 5.5" hub to a 6 on 4.5" wheel that is available with a thickness of 1.3" or just over 33mm, essentially restoring to a zero-offset.
It looks like between the existing bump-stops, the available replacement parts for the axle, the offset, and the spacer, that I could adapt the trailer to run the same wheels and tires as the truck. This would allow one spare on the trailer and one spare on the truck to satisfy having two spares for dealing with tire issues anywhere on the whole rig on journeys that leave the beaten path a bit more.
And for the record there are adapters that go from a 5 lug to a 6 lug, but those are two-piece adapters, which would add a further potential point of failure. I wouldn't be wild about spacers anyway but they simply don't make trailer hubs/brakes with 6 on 4.5 and I doubt that they'd sell me one intended for a 6 lug application without any holes drilled so to allow a machine shop to locally drill for me.
I had briefly looked into what it would take to adapt Dodge Dakota 6 on 4.5" parts but quickly ruled that out as it would also require an electric/hydraulic conversion too, and that's getting even sillier than my current thought-experiment, as the Dakota front spindle was only available for a disc brake setup.
Linear Mode
