Trailer wheel bolt circle adjustment

[Frank S]

Yes it means just how it reads.
First a little back story of history. Back in the late 60s a lot of guys wanted mag wheels on their rides because everyone thought they were cool the thing is there were numerous 5 hole bolt circle pattern diameters between 1 car maker and the next So at least 1 company came up with the idea of a flexible bolt circle pattern by making the holes oval than supplying an oval steel washer with the hole slightly off center this way if you turned the washer one way the wheels would fit a Ford or Chrysler products turn it the other way it now fit Gm vehicles
5 hole trailer axles have mostly been 5 on 41/2 or 5 on 5 or 5 on 51/2 the 5 on 4 3/4 were around as well.
Anyway I bought a small stock trailer on auction this past weekend and was going to go haul it home today. I called and confirmed the bolt pattern to be 5 on 51/2 Typical Ford f150 size So I could carry a couple of mounted tires with me since I knew the trailer to have old tires.
I was going to rob a couple tires and wheels off of an older F150 4x4 I have but it has Aluminum wheels on it.
2 things come to mind #1 I hate aluminum wheels #2 I will not put aluminum wheels on anything that did not come factory equipped with them or has been properly modified to run them IE longer studs. I also have a couple of Ford Expeditions 1 has 6 hole ugh Aluminum wheels the other a couple years older has 5 hole wheels which were steel
I remove a pair of them and toss them in the back of my pickup. Only fo learn once I tried to put them on the trailer that sometime in the late 1990S or early 2000s the bolt pattern was changed from 5 on 5.5 to 5 on 135mm (5.3") This happened probably along about the wheels whet from having a coined hole to a flat hole the trailer had 1/2" studs and the holes were 5/8" of some mm size but the wheel only lacked maybe .030" per hole of going on "DING" the flex hole idea suddenly came to mind I walked about 100 yards to a Hardware store and bought a rattail file about 20 strokes against the outer edge of each hole and the wheels went right on then since they were flat holes I reversed the lug nuts to have a flat mating surface to tighten against. Drove off checked them a couple times on the 120 mile trip home and alls well that ends well.