Wheel well conversion for older TMs

[Bill]

Before 2001, TMs had square wheel wells. Several TM owners experienced damage to the interior of their TM when a tire threw a tread - a common failure mode, as it turns out. As the tread begins to peel off the tire body, it gets caught in the corner of the wheel well. As more tread is forced in, it finally breaks through the upper side of the wheel well and into the interior of the TM, where it causes damage.

In 2001, TrailManor modified the wheel well design to a rounded design in order to mitigate damage from a tire blow out. For those who bought a trailer before 2001, a retrofit design was created by Joe Wetherbee and documented by Hal Swanson. This mod appears to work VERY well at preventing breakthrough and interior damage. I don't think I've heard of a single case of breakthrough on a trailer with round wheel wells.

In addition, Rick Newcomb, a long-time member, has documented his wheel well mod on his website, with plenty of comments and photos. Rick has been a loyal archiver of things that will not fit here, and his web site appears stable, so I will merely provide this link to it. Thanks yet again, Rick.

DEAD LINK REMOVED

Finally, I note that in the pdf documents, the shape of the new wheel well liner appears to change from one drawing to the next. I am sure that this is just an anomaly in the drawing. The best shape would be exactly round as in Figure B on page 2. This is the same shape as the wheel, so there are no corners for the tread to get caught in.

[Note: none of this is my work. However, since the procedures and photos are stored in various places on the web, and web sites come and go, I was asked to archive the material here where it can easily be found when needed. Thanks go to the people who did the work and archived it over the years, making this post possible. Bill (moderator) ]

Bill