The old suspension came off pretty easy and I replaced it with the Dexter E-Z flex suspension system. Really not too bad, did one side at a time and it came right off and new one right on. The old system was already shot. Besides the two shackles that had already failed, another two where egg shaped and all the plastic bushing were worn through. The steel bolts where rusted and starting to wear also. The dexter kit is not cheap, but it is well worth the price for what it fixes. First thing I noticed is how quite the trailer was backing it out of the drive, no more of the noisy squeaks and groans. Some from the hitch, but none from the suspension.
first tow with it went pretty well. We went about 4 hours over two days and they warmed up, but not too bad. Still not real happy, but I ran with it. At one luch stop, I checked the tires by jacking up each wheel independently. One seemed a bit warmer, so upon jacking it up I noticed it was a bit too tight. Pulled the pin, backed the nut off one flat and closed it up. The other wheel on that side was really cool, so I jacked it up just to see how it felt and was surprised that the wheel was really loose! Like floppy loose!
Only thing I can think of was I just put new cups in the drum and one must not have been seated fully. So right there I spun it and torqued it back down, then backed off two flats closing it up. Rest of the trip went well with the hubs seeming warm, but consistent.
The next trip I remembered my IR temp gun. Again, hubs seemed warm to the touch and but the gun was consistently reading them around 106 to 119o F. The temps were in the low 80's and the sun was out, sun side warmer than the shade side. This does not seem bad.
The first year and a half, I forgot that the hubs had those clean looking white plastic covers over them, so I was more measuring the temp of the wheel where it bolted to the hub. Third year I removed the cheap white covers because they looked dirty and it allows me to monitor the black hub of the drum directly. So while the hub is measuring above 100 but below 120, the center of the steel wheel is definitely cool. I actually have no idea what the temperature of the drum hub was those first two years as they were covered.
This Wednesday we are towing just over 4 hours, so it will be a good test. But it has done just fine the past two times and you can tell the difference with the dexter kit installed. I was pleasantly surprised by that.
Now I need to research tire wear and make sure mine is pretty normal. We tow a lot, at least I think so. probably 2,000 to 4,000 miles a year. Last year the trip to Yellowstone logged 5,100 on the burb alone, over 3,000 of that was towing.
\Thanks for all the input, I will update again later.
