i'm selling my 2 place snowmobile trailer, and thinking about buying a new trailer, or building one..i can weld and all that stuff. here is the debate. the trailer will be 5' +- x 14' +-. any how if i use a truck axle, i should'nt have to worry about greasing bearings, etc..right?just make sure rear diff lube is good. is there any problem with using a vehicle axle?? (besides width of standard axle). (or am i crazy )and just buy a axle for a trailer, and grease bearings...etc.also, what do you estimate cost difference betwwen buying and building one? p.s it will need to hold 3000lbs or so.

 

Well my opinion on this is... why waste the time in fabbing and adding all that extra weight if you can buy the right axle for so cheap.

 

You can also get these for most any spindle size.

http://www.tiedown.com/aturbo.html

 

I bought a home made 6x10 trailer from a freind that is an exelent fabricator and he builds custome trailers on the side in his shop. He likes to build things WAY heavier than nesasary. He put a 3000# axle on it. I think he got it from Northern Tool or someplace like that. I balive it has one of the best hub/bearing setups you could posibly ask for. The axle does not come with any hub or bearings. It has a square flange on it with 4 bolt holes on it. You can either go to a junk yard or buy new sealed hubs for any older GM car rear axle and bolt them rite on. I have used ones from a junk yard on mine and if they ever go bad you can literaly just unbolt the tire from the hub and then 4 bolts and the hub/bearings will unbolt from the axle. It requires little more efort then replacing a flat tire. I always take a spare along on trips so if the bearings go out i can replace them rite on the side of the road in just a few minutes and be on my way. Plus you can use rims and tires off of cars with GM 5 bolt pattern so you can get cheap tires and rims for them. 1 more benifite is that you can run 14" tires on them and You know the bearings are rated for high speed and will hold up for long trips down the freway and they NEVER require repacking. If they ever need replacing they can be bought new or from a junk yard for abought $15 a peice.

 

I think I got my 7000# axle with brakes and springs for like 300 bucks.