New Thule Trailer

[cjg004]

I was just given on of these trailers. Thanks to this forum, I now know that it is a Thule 1500!
Where is he Vin#? I’ve searched all over and can’t find it. It looks like it was on a sticker on the trailer tongue but there is nothing readable there now. I found the axle tag and thought that might be it but it is so damages that I can’t read it.

 

[jpclark2003]

I'm probably not much help bc my knowledge and experience with axles/wheels and their inner workings are pretty much nil. However, if you find that the axle and rims are fine, you can go to a simpler route like the one I took. I purchased new tires for my trailer from etrailer.com. I also purchased two 2" steel square bars (8" in length) from Amazon. I didn't see a need to get new rims especially bc I also had a spare tire. I returned from a 1 month trip where I traveled from Connecticut to Kentucky and then to Southwest USA (Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado). Over 6,000 miles were put on the new tires and the trailer. The tire you have linked from Amazon will probably work but note that it is "D" type and since these trailers are used predominately for travel especially long distance, I would opt for a "R" type tire (radial) which is ideal for highway use.

However, if you need new rims, you may want go ahead and transition the rims/wheels to more USA friendly parts. A couple of posters on here went this route and posted their projects. Tag them and see if they will respond if you do need to get new rims and want to put standard USA types on the trailer.

Had good luck with 4x100 wheel spacers 25mm or 1" thick, then can shop from millions of used honda wheel/tire packages online. Their offset is 45-55mm vs 20mm for brenderup stock wheels. Mine had 14" upgrade stock 185 65 14 to be exact

 

[jpclark2003]

skinnyhound- Best suggestion i can give you is to change the axle to SAE bolt pattern. When we built these, we had to use the european bolt pattern and used that for the wheel. Unfortunatley, our counterparts did not understand that the US market would want SAE wheels... lol

VA Runner- I am very happy to see your trailer still functioning. It is great to see it used for what we built it for, your recreation and enjoyment with your family. Thank you for all the photos, I've been following this thread for a number of years from when we first started building these in the US back in 2005-2006. Good show and good luck!

Honda 4x100 wheels are everywhere, just need some 1 inch spacers 56.1mm hub bore to make match the offset of brenderup stock steel wheels

 

[jpclark2003]

Dude....that's page 3 of THIS THREAD lol.

Solid axle on a Thule why? It's a great trailer, if the stock axle fails get a similar torsion axle and swap it in.

It would be like putting a Dana 44 under a Miata convertible. You still have a Miata but now it's heavier and doesn't handle well.

LoadRite makes a Knott drop in with 5x4.5 hubs