lake_dawg wrote:
Doing some searching I found some websites that sell tires and wheels as one unit.
Questions:
1. What's the cheapest place to get the spare tire bracket?
2. Is there a recommended place to get tires and wheels?
3. What is the cost of the aluminum wheels if I wanted to convert from the painted white wheels?
4. I assume we don't need to use Four Winns as the wheels are lug holes are universal, yes?
Being a salt water boater I wouldn't bother with aluminum wheels but you can get nice hot dip galvanized wheels from
http://www.easternmarine.comhttp://www.championtrailers.com http://www.trailerpartsdepot.com....they are cheaper and will last virtually forever with no maintenance...aluminum wheels look nice but suffer in salt and can wind up corroded right on to brake drums or rotors because of galvanic corrosion...in my opinion they have no place on a boat trailer...but I can't see the point of a painted plain steel trailer that goes in the water either!
They come in standard lug patterns...5 lug is 5 on 4.5 in
6 lug is 6 on 5.5 in usually...your 5 lug wheels go up to 3500 lb axles but when you get above that to 5200 axles you go up to a 6 lug...
To ward off galvanic corrosion I coat the back of my galvainized rims with OMC/Bombardier triple guard grease and I have never had a problem with the wheels rusting to brake drums even in salt water for years....if you do want to use Alu rims do NOT use antiseize because it doesn't work well in wet applications...coat the back of the drum or wheel with a good marine grease or you may not be able to get it off one day...
http://www.championtrailers.com/rims.html