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We have used the trailer only twice, has only about 300 miles on it and we havenot put any heavy stuff in it yet. I think the tires are rubbing when hitting bumps and dips in the road.  Anyways I bought a set of axle pads and will weld them on this week and put the axle below the springs to get a little more clearance like Matt did. I dont think it will change the towing characteristics of the trailer , in fact it might tow better behind my van as they will both be at the same height. The only other problem I have had is that the fridge has a tendency to move out of the enclosure even with the strap on it but I'm working on that problem now. I will keep you all posted on how things go. Its a long trip from Chicago to the Pacific Northwest and we dont need any problems !! Mitch.

Sportsman Matt said:

IMPORANT TIRE CLEARANCE ISSUE

After trailering my 19BH on a short trip, I noticed that inside the wheel wells was a build up of black on the top like the tires were rubbing.

Guess what… They were rubbing. Seems that the tires don't have enough clearance to move without hitting the top of the wheel wells with the current spring under axle suspension system.

I e-mailed KZ RV Inc a photo of the picture of the inside of the wheel well, explaining what they can do to fix the problem on future models.

I did my own repair, adding new spring seats to the axle and mounting the springs from underneath the axle to above the axles. Cost me less than $20 plus my time. (Helps that I used to work in Steel Fabrication for a few years and then did a few years as a RV Service Technician)

I STRONGLY SUGGEST YOU INSPECT YOUR TIRES AND WHEEL WELLS FOR ANY SIGN OF RUBBING. THIS CAN CAUSE PREMATURE TIRE WEAR OR TIRE FAILURE RESULTING IN TRAILER DAMAGE OR PERSONAL INJURY DUE TO A TIRE BLOW OUT.

I am awaiting KZ-RV Inc to respond to my e-mail.

Also due to the low suspension, I managed to damage the end of the tongue jack by scraping while exiting a gas station. I had to sawzall the last 3/8″ of the extendable inner tube that was crushed to fix it. Luckily nothing else was damaged when the bottom scraped the curbing when exiting.

Thomas, if they are going to flip the axle , you should'nt need anything else. The only thing you will need to do is adjust your ball height on your tow vehicle as the tongue on the trailer will be higher. This can be accomplished with a new reciever bar with the appropriate lift. I did notice that my 16bh tends to roll around a bit more since I raised it, I'm toying with the idea of adding shoch absorbers to it to keep it from bouncing and rolling around. All in all, I'm happy with the axle flip. Mitch.

Post edited 1:11 am – September 2, 2010 by dallas214

Hello — I had my axle flipped on my 14RK and am happy with it. I still try to be careful over bumps, etc, but I feel better knowing that the wheel isn't rubbing on the inside of the wheel well and that I'm not going to scrape my tongue jack. It's also a little easier to get at the dump valves and light the hot water heater.  I paid $220.00 for my service, but that also included grease and re-pack the bearings. I think the charge for the axle flip alone was $110.00. I had the work done at a shop that works on trailers (mostly non-RV type trailers) and installs hitches on trucks. The trailer does bounce around somewhat more and I had to put a tension rod in front of the drawers (inside the cabinet) to keep them from coming out. I replaced my 3″ drop draw bar with a straight bar and that took care of the extra height (of course you may need something different depending on what you are currently using).

They did weld in new spring seats on top of the axle (just like in the pictures on Sportmen Matt's entry above).

Do you all know what size AXLE k-Z uses in the 16BH. By the looks of it, its 3″ ?