Not long after I bought my '19 SLX-7 174BH Baja Edition, I became interested in changing the wheel bolt pattern to match the tow vehicle, my '15 Nissan Frontier crew cab longbed. I bought the Baja Edition trailer with the intent that I could get a bit more off the beaten path, and that includes taking steps to reduce the likelihood of getting stuck, and among that I wanted to be able to run bigger wheels and tires.
Today I finally made that change. These are the wheels that I'm using on the tow vehicle and subsequently for the the 174BH:
It's a 17 by 7.5 factory steel wheel that Nissan used as the spare on various years of Pathfinder, Xterra, and Frontier closer back to 2005, and has since brought back with the new D41 trucks. I got the pair from an auto wrecker, they were OE on a pair of '23 trucks that ended up in the yard, and neither had ever run on the road.
The trouble with trying to make the bolt pattern match is that the Frontier from 2005 onwards through the present is 6 on 4.5". This pattern is not especially common and is basically limited to the Frontier/Xterra/Pathfinder where they're platform-mates with my Frontier, along with mid-nineties through mid-noughties Dakota and Durango, along with the early Dodge Vipers.
I had spent quite some time trying to find trailer brake drums in 6 on 4.5", even going as far afield in my search as Australian products for their domestic market. Unfortunately nothing in this wheel bolt pattern was designed for a 3500# axle and spindle. I tried looking for undrilled brake drums next, to see if I could have a local machine shop drill them to my bolt pattern instead of the more common 6 on 5.5", but that did not work out either, no one would sell me undrilled trailer brake drums.
Lastly I attempted to find 6 on 5.5" trailer brake drums with flat mating surface rather than the weird scalloped design that all trailer brake drums seem to use. with a truly flat face I was willing to have a machine shop drill a new pattern for 6 on 4.5" in between the existing holes and moving the wheel studs to these new holes, but unfortunately the only manufacturer that I could find that made such a drum for a 10" diameter application with a #84 spindle was AL-KO, and their operations making those drums had discontinued them.
Eventually I ended up settling on using wheel bolt pattern adapters. For what it's worth, I am not happy about using wheel bolt pattern adapters, I think they're a kludge at-best and they do not allow for a wheel to be hubcentric, but supposedly they're rated to thirty thousand pounds per the response I got from the manufacturer, and given the factory wheel offset for a Nissan 17" steel wheel, they would make up the gap between the 0 offset trailer hub design and the ~30mm positive offset on the Frontier wheel. This also has the benefit of not using custom parts for the trailer-specific stuff, so if I needed to have a brake drum replaced on a road trip, I wouldn't be SOL on that and in a truly worst-case scenario could look for a 0-offset 6 on 5.5" wheel if I had a problem with one of the adapter-spacers.
The axle is made by Lippert, and I reached out to them to get information on a 6 on 5.5" drum to replace the 5 on 4.5" drum. They referred me to p/n 136214:
This is actually for Lippert's oddball 4400# axle, but uses the same #84 spindle, bearings, etc, as the 3500# axle uses.
So when I ordered a pair, I ended up with drums out of two different production batches.
I would have rather they came from the same batch but these are the breaks.
I also ordered these wheel spacers:
These are from EZAccessory, are 1.5" thick, have an 87mm ID for the center bore, and feature 14mm wheel studs. Even though both the old 5 on 4.5" drums and the new 6 on 5.5" drums use 1/2"-20 wheel studs, on measuring I found that the lugnuts from the existing setup won't work. They're too tall, they stick out proud of the adapter:
I didn't get a good picture of it, but I measured the bores for the wheel studs and they came in at 0.627". In looking up lugnuts I learned of "ET" or Extended Thread lugnuts, where there's a shaft that protrudes below the taper:
So I ordered a set of these as well. The close fit between the ET part of the lugnut and the wheel adapter will help center the spacer and provide more engagement.
...to be continued...
Today I finally made that change. These are the wheels that I'm using on the tow vehicle and subsequently for the the 174BH:
It's a 17 by 7.5 factory steel wheel that Nissan used as the spare on various years of Pathfinder, Xterra, and Frontier closer back to 2005, and has since brought back with the new D41 trucks. I got the pair from an auto wrecker, they were OE on a pair of '23 trucks that ended up in the yard, and neither had ever run on the road.
The trouble with trying to make the bolt pattern match is that the Frontier from 2005 onwards through the present is 6 on 4.5". This pattern is not especially common and is basically limited to the Frontier/Xterra/Pathfinder where they're platform-mates with my Frontier, along with mid-nineties through mid-noughties Dakota and Durango, along with the early Dodge Vipers.
I had spent quite some time trying to find trailer brake drums in 6 on 4.5", even going as far afield in my search as Australian products for their domestic market. Unfortunately nothing in this wheel bolt pattern was designed for a 3500# axle and spindle. I tried looking for undrilled brake drums next, to see if I could have a local machine shop drill them to my bolt pattern instead of the more common 6 on 5.5", but that did not work out either, no one would sell me undrilled trailer brake drums.
Lastly I attempted to find 6 on 5.5" trailer brake drums with flat mating surface rather than the weird scalloped design that all trailer brake drums seem to use. with a truly flat face I was willing to have a machine shop drill a new pattern for 6 on 4.5" in between the existing holes and moving the wheel studs to these new holes, but unfortunately the only manufacturer that I could find that made such a drum for a 10" diameter application with a #84 spindle was AL-KO, and their operations making those drums had discontinued them.
Eventually I ended up settling on using wheel bolt pattern adapters. For what it's worth, I am not happy about using wheel bolt pattern adapters, I think they're a kludge at-best and they do not allow for a wheel to be hubcentric, but supposedly they're rated to thirty thousand pounds per the response I got from the manufacturer, and given the factory wheel offset for a Nissan 17" steel wheel, they would make up the gap between the 0 offset trailer hub design and the ~30mm positive offset on the Frontier wheel. This also has the benefit of not using custom parts for the trailer-specific stuff, so if I needed to have a brake drum replaced on a road trip, I wouldn't be SOL on that and in a truly worst-case scenario could look for a 0-offset 6 on 5.5" wheel if I had a problem with one of the adapter-spacers.
The axle is made by Lippert, and I reached out to them to get information on a 6 on 5.5" drum to replace the 5 on 4.5" drum. They referred me to p/n 136214:
This is actually for Lippert's oddball 4400# axle, but uses the same #84 spindle, bearings, etc, as the 3500# axle uses.
So when I ordered a pair, I ended up with drums out of two different production batches.
I would have rather they came from the same batch but these are the breaks.
I also ordered these wheel spacers:
These are from EZAccessory, are 1.5" thick, have an 87mm ID for the center bore, and feature 14mm wheel studs. Even though both the old 5 on 4.5" drums and the new 6 on 5.5" drums use 1/2"-20 wheel studs, on measuring I found that the lugnuts from the existing setup won't work. They're too tall, they stick out proud of the adapter:
I didn't get a good picture of it, but I measured the bores for the wheel studs and they came in at 0.627". In looking up lugnuts I learned of "ET" or Extended Thread lugnuts, where there's a shaft that protrudes below the taper:
So I ordered a set of these as well. The close fit between the ET part of the lugnut and the wheel adapter will help center the spacer and provide more engagement.
...to be continued...
Attachments
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04 both new 2023 wheels.jpg207.7 KB · Views: 271
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Lippert 136214.jpg141.2 KB · Views: 233
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adapter on trailer drum test fit.jpg116.9 KB · Views: 228
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lippert drum 1.jpg148.1 KB · Views: 228
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lippert drum 2.jpg134.9 KB · Views: 223
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06 Jayco lugnut proud of the adapter.jpg93.3 KB · Views: 216
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08 ET lugnuts ordered.jpg75.5 KB · Views: 215