Trailering on a Wing(Nut) and a Prayer...

[Kelly Hanson East]

Ive had two fairly major trailer wheel/tire mishaps in the past 12 months.

Last year, between Ludlow and Albany NY (80 miles) my outboard bearing failed - when I inspected the boat the next morning, there was no bearing, retainer or nut left. The axle had been machined to a flat by the wheel snout, but it had gotten me home somehow. Apparently the brake drums had enough axial friction to keep the wheel on, even without the bearing...




The entire axle had to be replaced and I upgraded to plated disk brakes while I was doing this.

In August 2009, I trailered back from Cuttyhunk (200 miles one way) on 7 year old original trailer tires, and arrived home to find this..



Morale of the story - pay attention to your tires and bearings!! Im probably going to replace my tires every 5 years from here on out. That double axle idea sure looks good too.

[smoyer]

My tire guy always talks about the worst case condition for a tire being one that isn't driven much and that sits outside in the sun. In the olden days, you often saw RVs and trailers with wheel covers and it turns out these weren't just for show. If your trailer sits outside, keep the wheels out of the sun. And if it sits for a while, pull it forward 8 inches every so often.

[The Mutt]

Morale of the story - pay attention to your tires and bearings!! Im probably going to replace my tires every 5 years from here on out. That double axle idea sure looks good too.

I Agree, it's good to get into the habit of repacking bearings, checking brakes, tyres etc once a year, on a sail boat the leadup to the Summer season is a good time.

I'll admit that I sometimes forget to do it as often as I should.

Glenn

[Nautek]

In Queensland they will not roadworthy a trailer if the tyres are 7 years or older.
The tyre people tell me that is the safe working life of a tyre used or not.

Allan

[kadet]

In Queensland they will not roadworthy a trailer if the tyres are 7 years or older.
The tyre people tell me that is the safe working life of a tyre used or not.

Allan

Who are "they" because a safety certificate can be issued by a multitude of authorised dealers in QLD. The Queensland Transport Operations (Road Use Management—Vehicle Standards and Safety) Regulation 1999 is the legislation covering this and although there are many things listed to defect a tyre, age alone is not one of them. Sounds like this particular dealer sells tyres .

A tyre left out in the sun and parked on a chemically contaminated site maybe unsafe after a couple of weeks. A tyre properly warehoused and stored may be good for a decade or more. Age alone could never be used as an indicator of safety. It pays to give your rig a once over before every trip. And give the tyres a good wash with a proper tyre cleaner after each dunking to help preserve the tyre

[bscott]

KHE--I hope you bought a lottery ticket 'cause luck is certainly on your side. I was told that the life of a trailer tire is about 7 years. I rotate my trailer around to give all the side walls equal UV destruction. I feel better about my decision to convert to tandems last year

Bob

[Kelly Hanson East]

Bob

indeed lady luck has graced my house many times. I consider myself a careful trailer driver, practicing the Hindes safety protocol ofchecking the tires and wheels every hour on these boats since all of the components are being used to near their rated capacities

i knowthe difference between warm and too hot on trailer wheels by touch

I have designed (but not built) an electronic device to monitor tire temp and pressure....maybe someday

[waternwaves]

Harbor freight has the noncontact infra red viewing thermometers for sale 29, Focus that from above rignt on the hub.

They are not watertight.

However, it would be hard to come up with a cheaper system. and I suppose I could seal with an rtv sealant solution so I could leave it on the trailer full time, and then remote the temp data to the display.

Be really cool to send the temp readings back to the truck with wireless.......

[Scott]

Steven, not to disparage you mechanical know how, but............


Do you know what a pretrip inspection is? If I saw an axle end that rusty, I wouldnt have pulled it down the driveway much less across a state. The lug nuts should have been a dead give away.

[K9Kampers]

That's not rust Scott...thaaaat's New England camoflage!

[seahouse]

I have designed (but not built) an electronic device to monitor tire temp and pressure....maybe someday

Hmmm. Tire pressure monitoring devices will be mandatory on all vehicles sold in North America in the next couple of years, if they aren't already. Some of the (simpler) systems are not easily adaptable to trailers. Maybe yours is ? You might have something there.

-Brian.

[Kelly Hanson East]

That axle end was hidden inside the bearing buddy and was in great condition two hours before the failure.

I practice the Chip Hindes 'inspect every hour' mantra when I trailer.

There was tremendous heat generated when the wheel was machining the axle - Im sure that made a mess of a lot of things in there...

[Kelly Hanson East]

Somehere I posted measurements from my tires after trailering for one hour on a fairly hot summer day (90F) at 60 mph. I recall that the tire pressure went from the max cold setpoint of 50 psi to 60 psi during this interval.

a 20% increase in pressure means the temperature of the air in the tire went up 20% as well (in absolute temp units) this would be a temperature of

New Temp = (60/50) * 303 = 363 Kelvin, or about 90C - yikes, thats hot.

Maybe I didnt recall that pressure increase correctly.

On edit - found the measurement from 2007 and confirmed it

Pretty sure Ive posted this before - My tires Max inflation pressure is 50 psi - this is where I run them.

After 2 hours at 70 mph at about 80F ambient (hotter on the roadway, probably) they reached 60 psi and stayed there for the rest of the trip.

If I assume ideal gas thats quite a large temperature change to something like 150F for the air inside the tire. That makes the tire and wheel hot to the touch, but not burning hot.

Lets do that calc more carefully

Ambient is 80F which is 27C, or 300K exactly.
so new air temp is 60/50 * 300K = 360K or 188F

Pretty good SWAG the first time.

The tire and wheel dont get this hot, of course, since they have massive heat capacity compared to the air in the tire, but I never realised how hot the air got in these tires!!

[socalmacer]

I would suggest looking at your trailer on a regular/yearly basis. Preventative maintenance and safety is the point here. ONE NOTE OF CAUTION, with the wheels the way they look (mine were never that bad) you are probably having MUCH bigger problems that are completely out of site. The tongue portion of your trailer is likely the next place your trailer will fail and you may not be as lucky this time. The box steel in this portion of the trailer gets submerged in water at each launching and rusts from the inside out. The only indication I had there was a problem was the paint started to bubble in this area. This wasn't a surface rust problem but an indication this steel had completely rusted through to the point the tongue was no longer structurally sound. My trailer broke at the launch ramp (I was lucky) but could have easily broke on the road which could have been deadly as the trailer and boat would have likely separated from the tow vehicle.

Checking the lug nuts are tight before each trip, the bearings are loaded with grease on a yearly basis and the rust doesn't get out of hand to the point it is an issue keeps us all safe on the road!

[restless]

I'm all for tandems, a definite mod before we do any long hauls. We lost a wheel once.. bit of a shocker to say the least.
Thankfully I had everything to hand and we were underway again in 20mins. The police were well impressed! No damage
Our grief began with a sticky brake. This began cooking the drum. I would love a remote temp sensor. Instant feedback at the begining of possible disasters. I suppose it shouldn't be too hard to fix something to the drum.. hmmm