On Jan 22, 7:24*am, flying_monkey wrote:
Well, folks, the die is cast. *Last night I bought 2 Carlisle ST
205R75 tires. *I'll let you know what happens.

Ed

Well, the trip's complete, no problems. We stopped at a WalMart about
5 miles from the glider pickup location, and had the tires changed,
setting the pressure at 40psi. Their max pressure was 50, but we
thought that with the load as low as it was, somewhat lower would be
better. With the above described tires, the trailer towed flawlessly
at speeds of 70-75 mph for miles at a time, and probably intermittent
80 mph stretches. The tires and bearings stayed completely cool.

Regarding the suspension, it turns out that there is torsion bar
suspension, which hooks some way into the arm which supports the hub.
This arm a casting about 9 inches long welded onto the end of the
torsion rod. The suspension is totally sacked out, so is just a solid
ride. Even with both wheels off the ground, the suspension just sits
in the maximally compressed position. The tire man said that usually
there is an adjustment bolt somewhere on the axle near the center
which adjusts the ride height, but nothing like that was seen here.
I'm almost thinking that we'll have to grind off the axle and weld on
a new one to solve this problem. Anybody seen this before, or have
any ideas?

I see that NorthernTool has some axles similar to this, but the lowest
capacity is 2000#. If something similar to this was on our trailer,
it might seem as if it was locked up but be just sitting at the
beginning of its travel and there's not enough weight to make it
move. I doubt that, though, because the trailer tire sits within 1/2
inch of contacting the fixed fender, and in the whole trip, there's no
evidence that it ever touched the fender.

TIA,
Ed