I bought it. Looks like, at worst case, I could replace the axles with brand new Dexter 6k lbs axles for ~$1,500 or with 7k lbs axles for another $200-300
Will A 7ft Wide Enclosed Trailer Work?
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I would suggest before you modify any axles that you load it up with your car and some belongings and hit the scales to see where you're at. Unless you know for sure you're going to be exceeding the limits.
Right. Will do. I suspect that the guy's claim of 4,500lbs empty is pretty close. That's heavy for a 24' bumper pull, but this is a well built heavy duty trailer that is well optioned. That would leave 5,500lbs to play with, and I have weighed my household goods in the past at around 6k lbs. That's already at max and leaves no room to play with. I like the idea of having room to grow and the piece of mind that the axles are up on maintenance. So, once I give Dexter the axles serial numbers and they're able to confirm that the outer bearings are the only difference, I'll go ahead and get the bearings done. If they aren't otherwise identical, I'll weigh everything like you said first, and then decide what to do.
Nope! The old owner was way off. The title read 3500, the owner said 4500. I was pretty happy with the idea that it might be somewhere in between. I finally got it on the scale yesterday. 6,300 lbs! Holy 
!!!
I just installed new brake drums. The old backing plates came apart as the drums came off to take a look. So, on went new brake assemblies. I'm going to move my stuff from Dallas to KY in a couple days. I think I have 6-8k lbs worth of stuff. I'm probably going to end up overloading this trailer pretty badly. I have two spare tires, new brakes on the trailer, an exhaust brake in the truck. I bought a weight distribution with a sway stabilizer. As long as the weight stays under 13,100 lbs, the truck will not be overloaded. It has a GCWR of 20k lbs and weighed 6900 with me. It has a GVWR of 8,800 lbs, and so even with the current 1300 lbs tongue weight, I still have around 600 lbs of payload to spare. That heavy tongue weight is good in a way because it takes some of the load off of the trailer axles, which weighed ~5k lbs, and it brought the truck and I up to just under 8k lbs.
I'm not close to overloading any of the truck axles either. The trailer tires are load range E's, good for 2,840 each at max load. So, they'll be fine up to 11,440 lbs. I guess the weakest links are the outer wheel bearings, which were replaced with the brakes. So, I'll drive it slow, and aim for periods of low traffic, and I based on all of the reading I've done, I'll probably survive the trip.
Do any of you have experience overloading a trailer over a long trip? I'm going to do it, but I'd at least like advice on the safest way to get it done.
!!!I just installed new brake drums. The old backing plates came apart as the drums came off to take a look. So, on went new brake assemblies. I'm going to move my stuff from Dallas to KY in a couple days. I think I have 6-8k lbs worth of stuff. I'm probably going to end up overloading this trailer pretty badly. I have two spare tires, new brakes on the trailer, an exhaust brake in the truck. I bought a weight distribution with a sway stabilizer. As long as the weight stays under 13,100 lbs, the truck will not be overloaded. It has a GCWR of 20k lbs and weighed 6900 with me. It has a GVWR of 8,800 lbs, and so even with the current 1300 lbs tongue weight, I still have around 600 lbs of payload to spare. That heavy tongue weight is good in a way because it takes some of the load off of the trailer axles, which weighed ~5k lbs, and it brought the truck and I up to just under 8k lbs.
I'm not close to overloading any of the truck axles either. The trailer tires are load range E's, good for 2,840 each at max load. So, they'll be fine up to 11,440 lbs. I guess the weakest links are the outer wheel bearings, which were replaced with the brakes. So, I'll drive it slow, and aim for periods of low traffic, and I based on all of the reading I've done, I'll probably survive the trip.
Do any of you have experience overloading a trailer over a long trip? I'm going to do it, but I'd at least like advice on the safest way to get it done.
