Does anyone have info on taking regular truck axles, stripping the brakes, and rebuilding them into a new minimal housing without the diff?
The idea I'm shooting for is a small utility trailer with a heavy-duty load capacity (more on that below). It seems that it would be ideal to use axles with the same 6x5 bolt pattern that we have, and run the same size tires so I wouldn't need to carry a spare (or I would have three spares in a real emergency). If the axle conversion wouldn't work, the other idea might be finding a front wheel drive with the same bolt pattern, and grabbing the rear axle where I could shave the parts and weld them directly to a cross-beam.
I'm probably stretching the limits here, but I would like to build something with removable sides so I could go between hauling landscape materials or tree branches, and using it as a flatbed for carrying my motorcycle or other things. Building a bed for such purposes is easy, the real problem I see would be in the spring rating, and adjusting between a 200# load and a 2000# load. The easiest thing I can think of to accommodate this would be to add air shocks, but I'd be happy for input.
All of this is just theory right now, but I'd like to get something put together within the next couple years. The axle is the hard part for me, everything else is cake.