Dave H M wrote:
I would take midnightsadie's route. If it ain't broke don't fix it.
BTW, what is the country of origin on the Timken bearings?
They were Timkin USA bearings. That said what concerns me some is the bearing is a tad loose over the area it rides on the spindle (where the rotational gouges are near the threads. Also the axle threads are also somewhat marred as shown in one of the pics above. Lastly when I towed the trailer, to ME it somewhat looked like one of the axles was bent a tad. The wheels were not exactly in line with eachother and looked to be at slighly different angles top to bottom.. I think it's called camber? Anyway I just chocked it up to the trailer sitting for a while needing to be used but now I'm thinking maybe this "new" axle was really a damaged axle some shady shop sold him knowing he would be 1000+ miles away before the next problem.
Part of me says Slap it back together and rock n roll. The other part says don't get stuck in the middle of the desert kicking yourself because a replacement axle is only $235 with brakes.
I found some replacement washers by the way. They were in a bag the previous owner gave me when I bought it along with a spare set of china bearings. I also checked the hubs with a thermometer and the ceneter did not get very hot.
What brought about this while thing, is I've had issues with brakes dragging causing the truck to rev hard coming from a complete stop so I dug in and decided to repack all the bearing while I did an entire inspeciton. One hub ran hotter than the rest which I have replaced. That one had burnt grease. Then this is the 2nd one I pulled apart and was surprised at the gouges and home made washer.
I spoke to the original owner today on the phone and he advised he knew nothing about it. He said he had to stay a week in a hotel in upstate new york while they put in this "new" axle. To me it looks like they gave him a "repaired" axle and sold it as new. He says he never took it apart and his advice was to put new bearings on it.
