Help finding 5 bolt wheel hub?

zmoz · Mar 4, 2011

I'm building a "thing" that I can use around my shop to tow either trailers or dead vehicles into tight spaces. I will jack it up under the vehicle to be moved to add tounge weight to the pulling machine. It will be hand controlled, sort of like a tiller with a 5hp or so engine. I have two good trailer wheels/tires that I would like to use, that are the standard 5 on 4 1/2 bolt pattern.

I would like to use a riding lawnmower transaxle to power it with 3/4" shaft output for the wheels. The question is how do I bolt a 5x4.5 whel onto a 3/4" shaft?

Basically this is what I need, except in the wrong size:
SGL FL Kart Hub 4H 1in. Bore | Chains, Sprockets + Hubs | Northern Tool + Equipment

Am I stuck using some kind of adapter plate or can I find wheel hubs that will take standard 5 on 4 1/2 bolt pattern wheels and connect to a 3/4" shaft?

Car Doc · Mar 4, 2011

Take a rear axle with tires and wheels from a front wheel drive car at a junk yard you can use it as is or cut it to size etc I have built lawn mower trailers out of them before.

That would give you the platform to build off of they cost about a hundred bucks or less usually and I imagine you could figure out how to put a sprocket on a hub from there once the backing plates and brakes were removed.

TDVT · Mar 4, 2011

Some thing like this?

McMaster-Carr (main bushing page, can't link to specific part)

part# 8491A573

There are several different lengths, not sure how deep that hub is. You could cut these in half & use a piece on each end.

Tack weld it all together?

tcartwri · Mar 4, 2011

Just use a good 3 ton floor jack with casters, and push the car around that way. Use the jack handle as a steering arm. That's how I get my cars into tight places in the shop.

GLyford · Mar 4, 2011

I haven't seen anything in a live axle hub smaller than 1".

If you want to make your own, you could start with a couple of these:
Surplus Center - 3/4 SHAFT COUPLER
and weld on a plate.

Or just find a pair of lawn tractor wheels that fit. I see ads in my local craigslist for these for little or no money all the time. Some of the small time-fix-it guys (the ones with a line of mowers lined up by their driveway on nice days) will have a pile of tires and wheels marked "free," since most of the towns make them pay for disposal. If you need a little better traction, add chains.

I will also point out that the weight and power rating of most transaxles with 3/4 shafts isn't going to be very high. Here's one way around that:

Make a 1" "dead" axle that holds a pair of the ATV/kart hubs that have bearings and two flanges, mount the tires on one flange, and chain wheels on the other, then drive the chain wheels with sprockets with a 3/4" bore mounted the transaxle shafts. You could set it with the chains to the outside if you needed a narrower setup. You could also gear it down a little to compensate for your bigger tires this way, which would also help compensate for the poor torque capacity of lawn-tractor transaxles (yes, I've stripped one or two in my time).

The ultimate way around all of this would of course be to find an old cast iron GARDEN tractor transaxle that already has hubs for 5 on 4-1/2 rims. It would already have the torque and weight capacity and you wouldn't have to play games to get it to hold up. You might have to pay a little more up front to find one, but it will save you a bunch of building. Nothing worse than building a machine then having a core piece die on you and having to do it all again. Most of these use a horizontal shaft engine (or twist the belt), so you could power it with one of those "blue" motors.

smiley · Mar 4, 2011

[QUOTE I have two good trailer wheels/tires that I would like to use, that are the standard 5 on 4 1/2 bolt pattern.

I would like to use a riding lawnmower transaxle to power it with 3/4" shaft output for the wheels. The question is how do I bolt a 5x4.5 whel onto a 3/4" shaft? QUOTE]

Many of the larger lawn tractors like the old Fords and I think Case used a transaxle with the standard 5 bolt trailer bolt pattern. One of those transaxles with the 8" wheels would keep it down low.

zmoz · Mar 5, 2011

tcartwri said:
Just use a good 3 ton floor jack with casters, and push the car around that way. Use the jack handle as a steering arm. That's how I get my cars into tight places in the shop.

HA! Try that with a 6500# pickup up a slight hill in the rain.

GLyford said:
The ultimate way around all of this would of course be to find an old cast iron GARDEN tractor transaxle that already has hubs for 5 on 4-1/2 rims.

That would be ideal, I didn't know the old ones came with those kind of rims! Probably somewhat hard to find and expensive though, I'm trying to keep this project as simple and cheap as possible. Each time I start designing it I go overboard and end up with a tractor!

One thing I might try is to power it with an electric motor, providing easy stop/forward/reverse control, and just build a cart that my generator can ride on to power the motor. I'm pretty sure I've seen all electric versions of these things, with only like a 1hp motor...

pat32rf · Mar 5, 2011

Don't think you are going to support that pick-up on 3/4" axle shafts.....I'd go to FWD full floating hubs and just use the 3/4 shafts to transmit the power.

zmoz · Mar 6, 2011

pat32rf said:
Don't think you are going to support that pick-up on 3/4" axle shafts.....I'd go to FWD full floating hubs and just use the 3/4 shafts to transmit the power.

It won't need to support the whole vehicle...just enough to give the wheels some traction. I was thinking basically I'd mount a bottle jack to the "thing" and jack it up under a vehicle just enough for a few hundred pounds of force.

I may have found an old trailer I can cut up for parts....