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Torsion axles severe inside tire wear

Honky Lips

Honky Lips

Welcome to the shit show.
Joined
May 21, 2020
Member Number
876
Messages
360
Loc
Omaha, Ne “ish”
Took the crawler hauler to KOH and back, and it pretty much smoked the inside of a couple tires. All the tires are definitely showing accelerated inside wear.

Immediate thoughts, just go buy three new axles and bolt them in but figured I’d ask if anyone that is smarter than me knows if they could be rebuilt or adjusted
 
I have a trailer that has one axle that like to eat one tire
I finally took measurements and it must have been a Friday-Assembly at the Factory, because they are not trait

I guess I will slide a new axle in there someday
until then, I know that one tire if going to consume faster than the others
 
I'd look at spring/shackle alignment before blaming the axles
Start from the frame and work your way down
 
My fifth wheel was chewing through tires on one side of one axle. Took it to a heavy duty alignment shop in slc. They bent the axle to align it. They were doing a semi next to mine at the same time. Do it with lasers. I was pretty impressed. I think I paid like $150 or close to that. They left it hooked to my truck to set it at ride height. I’d do that first. I’m not a fan of torsion axles. Depending on tongue height one axle carries more weight. Had em on my gooseneck and kept blowing back tires. I got sick of that shit and cut em off and put sprung axles with equalizers between spring sets so the load was carried evenly between axles. Tire issues went away.
 
V30crewcab said:
maybe they're in backwards and they're toed out instead of in?:smokin:
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Then the arms would be facing forward instead of backward. Would be pretty obvious.

One of my enclosed trailers has tandem torsion axles. The guy who had it before me hit a 6" curb at 50ish mph. Bent the axle housing. I removed it and bent it back straight with a Bottle jack with a spreader bar and chain.
 
Bogus One said:
"Check the frame mounts first" is where I was going, Shithead

:homer:

Edit: And where does he say they're torsion?
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What part of it is the shackle? :P What weight are the torsions good for, and what is the supposed weight of the load and trailer? Is the frame twisting? Making the mounting surface camber? It does not take much. Sometimes a crossmember between the torsion mounting points, a strong one, can stop this. Personally, i would buy straight axles, and stop being a twat.
 
We just replaced 2 torsion axles on an equipment hauler. We cracked the casting/spindle assembly. They bent where the cracks were and made the tire burn off. I figure it was from Turing with a heavy load. I won’t buy another torsion axle trailer.
 
Depending on age the rubber inserts on the inner axle tube for the spring action breaks down over time. Check for that.

Check for bent axle tube. Heavy load hit pot hole hard and tweak it goes. This happened on my car hauler leaf spring axle but it bottoms out on the trailer frame causing the leverage bend.
 
My 23' enclosed snowmobile/utv torsion axle trailer has to be load balanced almost perfectly or it will scrub the tread off the inside of the right rear tire on a 600mi trip. The other 3 tires don't have that issue, just the right rear. If it's balanced out well, it wears normally. Unfortunately it's not always easy to balance the weight perfectly when you are wedging 4 sleds in there.
 
Stop and rotate the tires half way through the trip...problem solved:flipoff2:


I got nothing. Somehow the tires are scrubbing on the inside. Axle is bent, wore out, or mis alligned.
 
sicumminsde said:
Stop and rotate the tires half way through the trip...problem solved:flipoff2:


I got nothing. Somehow the tires are scrubbing on the inside. Axle is bent, wore out, or mis alligned.
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found a local shop that does alignments with friggen lasers and shit. gonna take it there and let it be their problem.
 
We have a local guy that does alighnments but it's not that difficult. Some torsion can't be alligned. I don't care for torsion and don't own anything with it so can't tell you for sure on how.

For a spring axle just start at the coupler and measure to somewhere near the ends. Use something strong like a chain hoist and hook it to the frame and to the end of the axle. Tweek it front to back to get it even to the coupler. Once it's square do the same thing to adjust the toe by pulling the center of the axle to the front or back. Then adjust the camber by bending it up and down. I've only had someone else bend it down for less camber. I've bent them up in the middle for more using a floor jack. I usually shoot for close to zero camber loaded.

It's kind of a hassle so I usually just take it to that local guy. The last one was $250.

Dexter bought out our local axle builder and I have never seen so many poorly aligned axles from the factory. A friend had one last year where ine tire was towed in 1/4" (not bad) and the opposite side was 3/4". The trailer company replaced the axle three times and all three were different but still junk.
 
Sounds like you're on it, I was just going to jump on the "check alignment and go from there" side. Somebody else also noted the "hooked to your truck" bit, and I'll second that as well, plus make sure whatever load you normally pull, is on it and positioned as it usually is.

I've seen a lot of cambered-out torsion axles where the tube is fine but the porkchop is twisted, or the spindle or stub bent. If you have a good frame and axle shop they can probably repair, otherwise, you're looking at replacing the axle as an assembly.

On a multi-torsion-axle trailer, I'd also suggest to figure out and mark where level is when it's aligned, and make sure you're loading it back to level every time, or you'll probably just move the problem around every time you unload/reload it. There's definitely packaging perks to torsion axles, but I'd much rather have leaves or bags on a multi axle trailer.
 
They wear out. I opted to switch my trailer to leaf sprung three years ago, after the same issue.
 
Wilson said:
They wear out. I opted to switch my trailer to leaf sprung three years ago, after the same issue.
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I think the only reason they put torsion axles on multi axle trailers is to save money. They just aren’t suited for more than one axle. No way the trailer is always going to ride perfectly level every time.
 
rockdog57 said:
I think the only reason they put torsion axles on multi axle trailers is to save money. They just aren’t suited for more than one axle. No way the trailer is always going to ride perfectly level every time.
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IDK, my old man has a 14k torsion utility trailer and it gives it a noticeably lower deck height than the similar trailer I have at work that is leaf. Have to keep it level, but I prefer it I think.
 
larboc said:
IDK, my old man has a 14k torsion utility trailer and it gives it a noticeably lower deck height than the similar trailer I have at work that is leaf. Have to keep it level, but I prefer it I think.
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This is about the only plus to a torsion axle. The low ride height. The centerline of the spindle can almost be at the middle of frame with no issues. What they have problems with are the load distribution. A leaf spring setup will help distribute the load.

I’ll get pictures of the cracked axles. I will never buy another equipment trailer with torsion axles. It is our newest trailer less than 1.5 years old and had to have both axle’s replaced already.
 
why don't we see as many drop axles as we should?

I got an old NSP single axle tilt deck bobcat trailer that has like 6" of drop in the spindles
Axle looks like an 8k, but there's almost no info on al-ko axles out there so I dunno.

framed out in 1/2" thick angle iron, thing's deck is about 8" off the ground
 
I wonder if it's because of the lost space between the fender wells.
 
Pictures as promised. This axle is less than a year or so old. It’s on a 16k equipment tilt deck trailer. My brother uses it exclusively for hauling his mini excavator and other landscaping shit around.

It seems to be pretty beefy but it cannot take the twisting like the spring trailers can. Dad is fighting to get them warrantied.

Once we changed this one a close look at the other axle and it was cracked in the same spot on opposite
IMG_9331.jpeg


You can see the crack

IMG_9332.jpeg


I’m a fuck torsion axle guy now. :mad3:
 
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