Last Monday night (the 9^th) at 9 PM, I drove to Fort Collins. I pulled into Luke’s driveway at about 10:30 PM and camped there overnight.

Customer's axles lined up for installation.

About 8 AM Tuesday morning, one of Luke’s men, Dave, arrived. Luke repositioned my trailer. I unhitched and got a folding chair out and watched the two of them work. To get the trailer up high enough they added wood blocks to their floor jacks. If ever you decide to do this yourself, make sure you use a good grade of hard wood. They used some pine and it split, letting the trailer down abruptly. Fortunately, no one was under the trailer when that happened, and it was the only mishap.

Once up in the air, they had the front axle off in fifteen minutes. The rear axle was more involved because of a gas line.

Here you can see the difference between the old and new axles.

When both old axles were off, we made an interesting discovery. They were not the same. The rear was rated 4,000 lbs. and the front rated 3,200. The tube on the 4,000 was 3”, the 3,200 was 2.5”. Together, they do not provide the factory rated GVWR of 8,300 lbs. (even with the tongue weight subtracted) and may be the explanation as to why my rear tires had more wear on the outer edge and the front tires slightly more wear on the inner edge.

The axles never matched the stated GVWR

This difference in axle capacities was a surprise because I was not able to see the manufacturing plate on the rear axle. It was buried behind a holding tank. I am not sure how I feel about mixing axle capacities.

On a dual axle trailer, proper towing alignment is for the front to be slightly lower than the rear. Never tow with the rear lower than the front. That being the case, why put the lesser axle on the front? Would it not make more sense to put the axle bearing the most stress on the front and make the lighter one the trailing axle?

Regardless, I now have matching 4,000 lb. axles and new self-adjusting brakes. It might have been my imagination, but I thought I could feel the difference on the trip home that afternoon. The trailer now sits about 2 inches taller and that is a good thing in that it provides a little more clearance for that long tail to clear dips in the road.

It was money well spent to have this done. This was definitely a two-man job, and at times, I even jumped in to help. That, and there is no substitute for experience. I’ve only changed one axle on my own, whereas Luke has done many. As an added benefit, he diagnosed and corrected an electrical problem I’d created. He and his company do quality work and take their time doing it so that they get it right the first time. He doesn’t advertise, but instead relies on word of mouth. You can Google, “Luke’s Maintenance & Repair,” for more information.

Luke's own '65 Caravel.