19 footer - still looking to buy

[TucsonBob]

As fall and winter approaches over the next couple months if you have a line on anybody who is interested in selling a 19-footer, I'm interested. My double car garage is 21' 6" deep. However, the max height is only 84 inches. I live in Tucson. A member of this forum contacted me by email he was the past president of the high low club in Arizona and was willing to sell me his 17-footer. The morning I was to pick it up I sent him a picture of my garage. He Immediately, called me to advise he changed out the axle on his unit and upon measuring it was actually 5 inches too tall to fit in my garage (taking into consideration the air conditioning cowling). Very very disappointing cuz it was a quality unit and very trustworthy guy and always garaged. So, again if you know of anybody who's going to sell maybe a 19-footer that would fit in my garage please email me. My updated email address is azbobingram@gmail.com

 

[oldcarguy]

This is probably going to sound a bit off the wall, but it MIGHT be worth considering if that 17 footer meets all your other criteria......

Back in the 60's / 70's Aristocrat made a travel trailer called the Lo Liner - one of the options they offered was a pair of small diameter solid wheels that could be swapped onto the trailer to get it low enough to fit under a standard garage door - image below is from an old Aristocrat brochure. The wheels were essentially a flat center with a thick steel ring welded to the perimeter, and were probably no more than 10-12" in diameter.

Especially if you have a level driveway and could swap wheels immediately before rolling the trailer into your garage, I'd think you could do more or less the same thing with a HiLo by installing a pair of very small diameter wheels. It would take a bit of work, but if you got a pair of bare steel rims that fit your trailer and cut the inner and outer flanges off at the first step, it should get the trailer low enough to get into the garage. One consideration - since it's going to get the trailer's undercarriage really close to the ground, you'd need a pretty low profile jack.

 

[TucsonBob]

Ya. Harbor freight has these cool little three wheel metal dollies that I used for my boat. They're only about 4 in tall. I use those for my boat. It makes it really easy to push the boat around even once it's in the garage you can push it way over to the side. Kind of a hassle though. Good news is we're coming into off-season. Now and no hurry just kind of going to watch for one that fits. But yep you got a great thought. Maybe we ought to market and sell some of those little wheels like that. Like you say if you get a little rubber one that'd be awesome. Again, thanks for your thoughts

 

[JackandJanet]

The wheels would have to be 5 lug and the diameter of the lug circle would have to be correct. I think it would be a BIG hassle to take the running tires/wheels off and then to mount the small rollers to get it inside the garage - then, you'd have to reverse the process when getting it out! I've found it kind of a pain to jack the single axle trailer, because you have to get the jack very close to the axle and there's not a whole lot of room to play with.

- Jack

 

[oldcarguy]

No question that it would be a hassle to swap wheels, but for someone who wanted to store a trailer in a garage with a door it won't fit under it's at least an option, especially if the purpose was extended winter storage and the trailer wasn't going to be moved for several months.

Probably the easiest way to install the small wheels would be to fabricate a pair of simple wedge ramps out of two or three stacked 2x6's with beveled ends, jack up each side in turn with a low profile floor jack (Harbor Freight sells a 1.5 ton capacity "aluminum racing jack" for $99 that's low enough), put on the small wheels, slide the ramps under the wheels & drop the wheels down on to the ramps, then roll it down onto the ground and into the garage.

Haven't had any reason to check the bolt pattern on our 2307C, but based on aftermarket trailer wheel listings it appears most trailer hubs have the same 5 on 4.5" bolt circle as most mid 50's through mid 70's Ford, AMC and Chrysler passenger cars. Trailer brake drums are fairly small, so it shouldn't be difficult to find a pair of bare steel wheels that would fit, and most of the rim portion of the wheel would be cut away to get the diameter down.

Probably not worth the trouble, but if a rubber contact surface was desired on the cut down wheels, it should be possible to cut most of the sidewalls off small utility trailer tires and stretch the tread section over the cut down steel wheels.