Wheel Box Wear Marks

watto64

Hello all, yes there are similar threads on this else where about over loading and axle failure on here however: 

At the last service the chap noticed areas of rubbing on the side walls of the wheel boxes on our elddis twin axle caravan. These werent reported on previous annual services.

The rub marks look like penfolds eyebrows for those that remember danger mouse  e.g front wheel at 2oclock position and rear wheel at 10oclock. It is the same both sides. The tyres show no sign of continous rubbing or abrasion.

The tyre walls have always been very close to the sides of the box. the boxes are flimsy plastic and the tyres have rubbed against the flexible bulges in the plastic.

I also observed how engaging the motor movers pushed the wheel slightly futher towards the box side wall in the affected areas.

So i have concluded that poor wheel box positioning along the bottom edge (from inside it would appear that the lower edge could be moved in 20mm) and the flexing of the wheels/ tyres when using the mover on tight turns as caused this wear pattern.

So my fix was to remove the wheels and using a low power heat gun to 'flatten' out the buldges in the flimsy box walls to increase tyre side wall clearance. Will also consider repositioning the box.

i will also do an obvious check on the next trip to see how the gap fairs under normal towing.

Thats all really - just thought i would share this finding..

 

 

 

Vulcan

I would be more concerned with your statement,

"I also observed how engaging the motor movers pushed the wheel slightly futher towards the box side wall in the affected areas".

I wouldn't have thought that engagement of the mover should cause the wheel to move sideways under normal circumstances.

watto64

i guess its pushing against the flex in the axle tube mounting rubbers.  i was more concerned about the general clearance and the flimsy buckled bellow nature of the wheel box side walls.