bought a Spen! repack bearings?

Hey guys, thanks to a fellow forum member's heads up, I bought a spen trailer today. I'm going to be picking it up this weekend! The trailer is roughly 5 hrs. away, is there anything I should know before I trailer it home?

What tools do I need to grease the hubs and wheel bearings? The seller says it rolls beautifully, but 10 minutes to his farm is different than 200+ miles that I'm doing!

Is there anything else I need to know before I drive out there to pick it up? Thanks in advance:stout:

 

Glad you were able to get it. Are you planning on towing it home or hauling it on another trailer? If towing at a minimum I would have a tub of wheel bearing grease, basic hand tools(open end wrenches,screwdrivers,needle nose pliers, etc), jack, and a spare tire. I brought a M-416 home towing about 100 miles or so. No problems, but I would check at the first couple opportunities, after pulling at speed, for warm bearings. Also check for tire pressure, if low pressure it can heat up.

 

It looks like you will be close to Uwaharrie National Forrest, supposed to be some good 4x4 trails. I have not made it down there yet.

 

yeah, thanks for the tip technologyteacher I'm gonna bring a bunch of standard type tools just in case, and probably repack the wheel bearings while I'm down there. I plan to tow it home and pray there won't be any complications. The guy says it rolls beautifully but you never know!

 

Well, there were complications....

I made it roughly 5 miles before I blew out one of the extremely dry rotted tires on my new Spen. The trailer didn't have enough weight to ride on the rim, but it was dancing around behind the truck pretty good.

I made it to an Advanced Auto, which happened to be the only place around that was open on a Sunday afternoon, and was getting ready to wrestle the bead off of the flat to add a tube, when a guy came over to help. He said he had a manual tire changer back at his place and would help out. We chatted for a minute and I mentioned that I was thinking about just flipping the trailer into the back of the pickup bed. He waltzed right over to a couple guys just pulling up, and said "you guy's look like some big 'ol rednecks, C'mon over here and help this guy out".

There is more than one way to skin a cat, is all I can say! We flipped that thing right over and slid it nicely into the back of the pickup bed! I guess worrying about the bearings heating up was the least of my worries (Pictures to follow)

 

Awesome. Can't wait to see it.

 

C'mon over, bring your welder!!!!
As you can see, it tracks beautifully behind my truck

 

Nice. Get her cleaned up and tell me what needs to be welded.

 

From the pictures, you can tell that the corner welds are cracked and the front part of the floor is rotted through. the frame has a slight rotted out spot too, same place as the floor rot. I priced out 16 guage steel to replace the floor, but I'm contemplating going thicker (12 or 14 guage) on the steel. Any thoughts?

 

1/2in sounds like a good round number for the floor :twisted: I can weld up to 1/4 inch in a single pass so go that or less. We will have to figure out something, maybe a night I come up to your place strait from work and see what metal we can stick together.

 

Sounds like a plan!

 

Glad you made it home! Post some pics with the progress

 

Not much progress to report, I'm struggling between the desire to modify it to suit my needs, and the thought that I really should keep it as stock as possible. From what I understand, they are much more rare than the Bantams and m-416s. Most of the initial work that needs to be done involves a welder, which I don't have.

Most of the changes that I'm thinking about doing are reversible with the exception of modifying the tongue into a receiver hitch so I can switch between ball/pintle/etc. The current ball hitch is mickey moused so I need to figure something out with it.

I'm also contemplating switching out the axles to ones with a 5 on 5.5 pattern and electric brakes. The current axles are 5 on 4.5, and have a locator pin that doesn't allow use of aftermarket rims. What are everyones thoughts on this?