Flow Below Added

One of the spare FL's that an O/O used for two rounds to CA and back. Was 8.4 but have been moving trailers in/out of the shop for 4 days.

 

Can't remember if I already said this, but I bought the DR Preload tools to fit my trailers and truck steer axles. I've only had the chance to get one trailer done. Now that I've had my hands on it and understand how it works, here's my take:

DR Preload will give you perfect, optimum preload set every time, and even a dummy can get it perfectly right. On the other hand, a skilled and careful tech can get the preload to 90% good by following the published procedure.

Problem is, nearly zero techs are skilled or careful enough to do it right, so you end up way off and never know it till the tires are chopped up.

The other thing is maintaining that preload setting. Once you've done it, you can reset preload at whatever interval you want, without taking the wheels and brake drums off the hub. The tool presses the outer bearing inner race and pulls against the spindle. Their axle nut has a relief cut in it to make this possible. Main labor involved is just removing the hub cap, adjusting, then replacing the cap and gasket. Of course better if you tear it down to re-grease everything and new seals, but a time saver for in-between I suppose.

Results on my trailer were 100% positive. I had two hubs that were loose, one loose enough to mess up the tires on it. Two hubs had been serviced by someone else - the loosest was one of those, and the other one like that was actually about right. The two other hubs were factory installed, and one of those was loose. Trailer pulls much smoother now, and by the dash gained about 0.2 mpg.

Do it - no regerts.

 

I just bought the tools so haven't burned that bridge yet. I finally got fed up with buying tires too soon when using the "I'll adjust them when I have to change the seals" program. I figure yearly maybe?

Plus, I finally was able to get a trailer order in, so in a year they'll be someone else's problem. I need to find out if I can adapt the tool, or if I'll need to just sell it and get the right one. The Hendrickson chassis equipped with disk brakes uses a parallel spindle, the drum brakes I have now are on a tapered spindle.