Trailer hub replaced

Last year, 2K16, while working on my trailer I noticed that it was leaking and when I went to fix it found that it was due to a bolt being siliconed in because the threads were stripped. SPOT!(Stupid Previous Owners Tricks). Let me tell ya this trailer has been thruogh the mill at some point.

My repair at the time was to drill out the stripped hole and retap it to a larger size bolt. I didn't like to do it but, hey it is only a trailer! Still it bugged me........knowing that in order to remove the hub I would need 2 different sockets.

This pic shows the larger bolt circled in red;

So today I set about effecting a better repair by replacing the whole hub/stub axle. Loosened the lug nuts and jacked it up and removed the wheel. Then the drive flange, hub, brake backing plate and stub axle.

Earlier in the week I had prepared the spare hub by cleaning and painting it. Now I had to clean the brake backing plate and I decided to cover the hole for the brake cylinder at the same time. The backing plate was a gooey mess! A thorough cleaning with acetone and a wire wheel got it done, next I snipped out some aluminum sheet to cover the hole and just siliconed it on. Add some rust preventer and some black paint, touch off with a little heat from a propane torch to make everything dry and;

Then is was just a matter of kneeling in the rocky dirt of my drive and bolting all the stuff back on. First though I had to clean off the bolts and find a sixth to replace the 1 oversized one I was replacing. The backing plate and the stub axle get bolted on at the same time. that is when I found out that I didn't make the patch the right size. It was too large and the hub flange wouldn't fit flush. So I took it off and trimmed the patch and stuck it back on. THEN it would bolt on.

Next to go on was the hub taking care to get the bearing tension right and locking the tabs over on the nuts. I had to sort thru some used nuts as these had been removed/installed via the world famous chisel method, necessetating some file work to get them to fit flat and the proper nut wrench. After spending more time cleaning up the gooey brake drum it too was put on.

That left only the drive flange to fit. All the bolts were wire wheeled clean before installation. I put them in more or less hand tight because the hub wanted to rotate if I went harder.

Installed the wheel and hand tightened the lug nut prior to dropping it on the ground. I pulled the jack out and put some weight behind my socket on the lug wrench and tightened the drive flange bolts at the same time.

DONE!
Total time was 4 hours, lots of cleaning................, but I feel better knowing that I fixed a small flaw and I and others won't have to deal with it in the future.