Replacing Wheels on a Trailer with 5 Spoke Utility Hubs and 8-14.5 Size Tires

Question:

I have size 8 14.5 tires on my trailer, two of them. They are on some kind of donut type of rims? The bolt pattern is very wide spread. Can these be changed out to regular rims?

asked by: David H

Expert Reply:

What you have on your trailer is called a 5 spoke utility hub, like part # 8-174-5UC3. They're pretty common on mobile homes so I'm guessing this is where your axle came from. This is also evidenced by your 8-14.5 tires since they're often on mobile homes as well. In order to replace the rims with a different bolt pattern you need to replace the hubs.

Mobile home axles are often hard to find replacement parts for so there may not be anything available without replaing the entire axle. You need to pull off the hubs and check the bearings to see if there are hubs to fit your axles. If you can read the bearing numbers let me know what they are. If you can't read them measure their inner diameters to the thousandth of an inch. From here we can find out if we have any hubs that fit, and subsequently any wheels that fit the hubs.

expert reply by: Charles S