5th Wheel RVers Spin Test Your Wheels!
RVers who have 5th wheel trailers may want to consider spin testing their wheels while on the axle. Richard & Joan Walter from DeBary, Florida have a 5th wheel and performed the spin test today. 
They backed the 5th wheel onto a heavy duty plastic ramp in order to suspend one tire at a time for the spin test. It's recommended that you suspend one wheel at a time and manually spin it to check for rotational deviation. 
One way to do this is to tape a straight edge to the wheel skirt in close proximity to the tire and spin the tire. The stationary straight edge will give you an eyeball evaluation of how straight your wheels are tracking. Richard says that if the wobble is more than one half inch off then you will need to have a shop realign your wheel. Most of the time, you can just spin the tire by hand and eyeball it to see if it’s true. When your wheels are tracking straight, you’ll get better tread life and your wheel bearings will last longer. Jim Twamley
They backed the 5th wheel onto a heavy duty plastic ramp in order to suspend one tire at a time for the spin test. It's recommended that you suspend one wheel at a time and manually spin it to check for rotational deviation. One way to do this is to tape a straight edge to the wheel skirt in close proximity to the tire and spin the tire. The stationary straight edge will give you an eyeball evaluation of how straight your wheels are tracking. Richard says that if the wobble is more than one half inch off then you will need to have a shop realign your wheel. Most of the time, you can just spin the tire by hand and eyeball it to see if it’s true. When your wheels are tracking straight, you’ll get better tread life and your wheel bearings will last longer. Jim TwamleyLabels: Wheels
posted by Jim Twamley at
3:51 PM
2 Comments:
Here is an update to the above article from an email I received from Rich. "Jim, finally getting caught back up here in FL. The first of your articles which I had read was about my "lumber bag". I just looked at the article re. the smartjak and there was some misleading info that you might want to correct.
What I was attempting to do was check my "Nev-r-lube" hubs for wear. There is a chart on the Dexter website which gives what they call "acceptable runout" based on tire diameter and once that dimension is reached, the bearing pack must be replaced. Hope this helps. Rich" Hope this sheds more light on the subject. Jim Twamley
By
Jim Twamley, at 10:48 PM
I thought:
Alignment references the direction of wheel travel in relation to the axel. The alignment could be grossly out of spec and the wheel would turn true in the test presented.
The wobble that would show up with this test would be an indication of the wheel not being true. As in; bent.
Granted, it would be quite difficult to get an accurate alignment with a bent wheel.
By
Anonymous, at 10:59 PM
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