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View Full Version : Some words to the wise about trailers



Full_Monte
05-03-2009, 02:05 PM
Hi Guys,

I have about 40 years of occasional towing experience, but got a lesson the other day from the school of hard knocks. It was about 4:30 am. I hooked my light-weight trailer and boat up to the truck and camper and the wife and I took off. On the freeway, I started hearing a noise like a loud wind. Not being able to see my small boat/trailer behind the truck/camper rig, I listened intently to the sound. Then I checked the rear view mirror and saw a hail of sparks behind me. Pulling over to the shoulder, I found out that my hitch had popped off the ball and had been dragging down the road by the chains. My trailer has no brakes of its own. These were my errors:

1. Not having a dual-point-of-mounting for the safety chain. Done right, you cross the chains under the tongue so that the tongue rests on the saddle formed by the chains if it pops off the ball. This would have prevented the sparks and damage to my wheeled tongue jack.
2. Not adjusting the length of the safety chains to keep the tongue from hitting the pavement if it came loose. You need enough slack for tight turns, but not so much that the tongue hits the pavement if it comes loose. You want it to drop below the level of the bumper, but not much further.

I still don't know how the tongue popped off the ball. I replaced the hitch on the tongue.

Here's some more info on trailer safety, including brakes:

http://www.sherline.com/lmbook.htm#refrn6

SilverBullets
05-03-2009, 02:18 PM
Thanks for sharing that Monte...glad to hear everything came out ok, and not too much damage. I wondered why they say to cross the chains...makes sense now. I also really never gave the chain slack much thought. I will definitely check it out next time I'm hitched up...Thanks!!!thumbsup

Kokonuts
05-03-2009, 03:03 PM
Another good tip from Monty! Glad to hear that everything turned out OK!

Ive alwayes crossed the chains witout knowing the reason why. Now I am going to double check the length!

thumbsup...Kokonuts

Kokaholic
05-03-2009, 06:15 PM
Dont feel bad, I had the same thing happen to me. The chains caught mine and didnt cause any damage. The grinding was done on my spare tire rack on the road that is set back up under the tounge. Yes, I was lucky.

FishHunter
05-04-2009, 11:48 AM
I had the same thing happen a few years ago with my small aluminum boat. Luckily I had the chains crossed and the tongue never hit the road. I was only going a short distance and didn't notice until I arrived.

Some states have laws requiring the chains be crossed on trailers and if you get pulled over you can get a ticket if it they are not crossed.

SilverBullets
05-04-2009, 11:58 AM
It looks like this is a common occurrence... does anyone know why it happened in the first place?

Lundman
05-04-2009, 12:22 PM
My Dad had an interesting mishap that he told me about several times.

He & his fishing buddy were heading to Canada to do some walleye fishing. They were driving along in his pickup pulling his 17' alumimun boat & trailer when all of a sudden the boat and trailer jump straight up enough to eject the boat off the trailer. The sudden jolt caused them to brag the boat till they got stopped in the middle of the road. He said it was like something had grabbed the boat and trailer and throw them straight up with a huge force.

So here they are boat off the trailer, trailer still hooked to the receiver, and them left wondering what the HE$$ happened.....

So what do you think it was.........


They get to start looking around and noticed the boat spare tire is missing..... they see the tire about 100 yards back on the side of the road.

This is what happened - the boat trailer spare tire came loose and slid under the boat for a few feet - then it caught on something which caused it to turn end over end - this unfortunately must have been directly under the baot trailer. This tire causes the trailer to jump straight UP....

Luckily there was no one behind them but my dad's friend did run back up the road a few hundred yards to stop a school bus full of kids that was approaching fast...

My dad always told me to ALWAYS check to make sure the spare is secure!!

Bduck
05-04-2009, 12:24 PM
I had this to happen too. I was lucky when I heard a thump a block away from home. No damage. Chains were crossed. What I found out was my hitch was not adjust correctly to the ball. If its loose it will pop off. Also, periodically check this area and make sure no other stress is taking place. Once again if the ball is not adjusted correctly, all the herky jerky motion will start guttin' it out over a period of time of course.

dunnigan jim
05-04-2009, 12:35 PM
I seen a couple guys lose their boat on the way to indian valley a few yrs back. The road into the lake gets Very rough in the spring and these guys come flying up on me so i pull to the side and let them pass. now i travel this road at15mph , these guys our doing 40mph. couple miles up the road we see the boat off the trailer . Asked them if they needed help and they looked at us as if it was our fault. Didn't see them at the lake that day. Seems some guys are allways in a hurry to get nowheres.

SuperD
05-04-2009, 12:44 PM
I've had the luck of driving several miles with the tongue not latched and it never came off. I guess my tongue weight and balance is good. How about rear end damage? Most guys I've heard this happen to have the trailer slam the back of their vehicle.

SilverBullets
05-04-2009, 02:07 PM
What are your thoughts on applying a small amount of grease on the ball prior to hook-up?

Dropshot
05-04-2009, 02:39 PM
A little grease will help the hitch settle over the ball and will keep your trailer tracking straighter.

I have a utility trailer I have to be very careful of. Often it looks like the hitch has settled all the way over the ball, but if you feel underneath and get down and look close, you can see it is about half way over the ball. I have got in the habit of checking and double checking this hitch, which has formed a habit I carry over to the boat trailer as well.

SilverBullets
05-04-2009, 03:01 PM
Cabela's has a item called the Trailer Guardian that prevents the trailer from becoming de-coupled from the tow vehicle...locks down over the hitch. Might be worth looking into. thumbsup

Full_Monte
05-04-2009, 03:46 PM
What are your thoughts on applying a small amount of grease on the ball prior to hook-up?

It's recommended that grease be used all the time. I usually have so much grease on my setup that I don't grease it every time. I use a cover over the ball when not in use to keep it from making a mess. One thing I'm thinking is that old grease may impede the latching mechanism from working properly. That could have been my problem.

calicojack
05-05-2009, 08:40 AM
Great info guys but all this has me paraniod that somethings gonna go wrong hopefully by reaading this i can prevent it.Anyway the only thing i can add is tires tires tires they can go bad at any time .Especally from sitting on the the same spot over winter.I had a small problem on the way to the berry one early morning wen my tire blew out and went unnoticed for a spell i ground the rim down before i realized wat happened no spare duh ..lucky i was close to heber so i got a tire and rim.i think it was thoise bumps they put on the side of the road to keep u awake that caused it.
a lessson wwell learned.good fishing

SilverBullets
05-05-2009, 11:24 AM
Good point calicojack! Just replaced the trailer tires with 6 ply the other day. One thing I do to extend their life is to jack up the trailer during the winter to get the tires off the cement. Also, it pays to give them a quick inspection before heading out every trip. I carry 2 spares, grease gun, and extra wheel bearings just for emergencies.

Kokonuts
05-05-2009, 12:05 PM
I had another interesting trailer surprize about 20 years ago. I was with a couple of buddies hunting in Utah. I was driving a Motor Home towing a 4x4 jeep about 2 in the morning when I noticed the jeep was trying to pass on the left side. The chains were to long, it was about half way out on the left. So I slowed down, kept the jeep tight to the back and stopped in the road. We were out in the middle of nowhere, and we found that the nut that holds the ball had worked loose & fallen off so the ball was still on the tow bar but no nut!
We were very lucky because one of the guys had brought an extra ball so we change them out , put some duct tape on the treads below the nut and drove the rest of the way home !

SuperD
05-05-2009, 01:01 PM
This was my boat trailer surprise from a couple years ago. We were headed to Lake Powell, AZ and stopped for the night in Mesquite, NV. When we came out in the morning, I noticed the boat was hanging about a foot farther back on the trailer than it was supposed to.

http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/1858/trip1bi1.jpg

The bow stop post had snapped off at the weld. tooexcited

I took the post off in a parking lot and drove around looking for a place to get it welded. I found a little shop in the middle of nowhere and used hand signals to communicate with a non English speaking hero that fixed it for me.

http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/2678/fixnp7.jpg

He only wanted $30 so I gladly gave him $50 and told him to keep the change.

Bduck
05-05-2009, 01:18 PM
This was my boat trailer surprise from a couple years ago. We were headed to Lake Powell, AZ and stopped for the night in Mesquite, NV. When we came out in the morning, I noticed the boat was hanging about a foot farther back on the trailer than it was supposed to.

http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/1858/trip1bi1.jpg

The bow stop post had snapped off at the weld. tooexcited

I took the post off in a parking lot and drove around looking for a place to get it welded. I found a little shop in the middle of nowhere and used hand signals to communicate with a non English speaking hero that fixed it for me.

http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/2678/fixnp7.jpg

He only wanted $30 so I gladly gave him $50 and told him to keep the change. Give me $50 and I'll get you a 6pak of beer and I'll keep the change. tongue2

sthoge
07-06-2009, 04:33 PM
I had a trailer mishap this weekend and the mistery is yet to be solved, although I have a pretty good idea what caused it. We were travelling back home from a day of fishing cruising about 60mph when it suddenly felt like my truck was loosing power. I looked in the mirror and the tire on the drivers side of the boat trailer had lost the rubber off of the tire. When the rubber came off, it caught the back of the fender and litterly rolled it up like a twinkee and was rubbing what was left of the tire. The interesting part was that the tire still had air in it, even though you could see the steel belts of the tire.

This was a radial tire that has been on the trailer since 1999 and probably has maybe 20 thousand miles on it. I was able to get off the road and un-bolt the brackets that hold the fender on and was able to remove the fender and we were able to get it home. I noticed that the passenger side hub was a normal warm that you could hold your hand on, but the drivers side was so hot you could barely touch it. Since I have bearing buddies that had ample tension on the springs, I assume it probably was not a bearing that seized up that cause the problem. I will be pulling the hub in the next day or two, but I suspect I'm going to find the inner seal may have popped off, allowing grease to get on the brake shoes and the swelling of the shoes may have caused excessive drag causing the tire to overheat and loose it's rubber.

DLM
07-06-2009, 04:56 PM
I had a trailer mishap this weekend and the mistery is yet to be solved......

I can't imagine the hub or brakes heating up enought to cause the tire failure in this manner.

I suspect that the tire was low on air, got hot and came apart. The big chunks of tire you see on the freeway are from semi's that had a tire with low air. As the tire heats up the tread seperates from the tire and peals right off. This is more common with retreads but can happen with any tire. The tire would surely get hot enough to warm up your whell and hub. If you still have most of your tire a good tire shop, such as a les schwab could look at it and tell you what happened.

It is unusual that the tire remained inflated, you must have noticed it very quickly.

SuperD
07-06-2009, 05:41 PM
10 year old trailer tire and 20k miles and there is a mystery? laugh hystlaugh hyst

Dropshot
07-06-2009, 07:35 PM
10 year old trailer tire and 20k miles and there is a mystery? laugh hystlaugh hyst

Shame on you. 20k on a boat trailer is one serious fisherman.:eek:

Full_Monte
07-06-2009, 10:05 PM
Radial tires are not recommended for trailer use. Bias tires are recommended.
I'm not sure of the reasons for this, but maybe one of the other guys can comment. If you are changing out ten year-old tires, you might investigate this.

Mossback
07-07-2009, 12:33 AM
Full_Monte,

I drive trailer's/boats on a weekly basis. Radial verses bias thread tires have their advantages/disadvantages. It's really predicated on the load rating your applying. I'm removing the bearing/wheel issue here. We're talking tire wear and potential failure. Bottomline: I go 15,000 on radial and check 'em then replace at 20,000. Bias, I go 10,000 and dump 'em at 15,000. Been doing this for 30 years and never had an issue. Then again the bearings/races get replaced every two years. The bearing buddies get the red lithium everyother time out.

Mossback

Full_Monte
07-07-2009, 10:15 AM
Here's good info on trailer tires from a tire company:

http://www.discounttire.com/dtcs/infoSeparationAnxiety.dos

also:

http://www.championtrailers.com/tire_art.html

What I learned is:
Use only ST (special trailer) rated tires. They can be bias or radial. Don't mix these two types on your trailer. Radials run cooler. Bias tires have stiffer side-walls and cut down on trailer sway, but run warmer than radials. The ST tires are built tougher than regular passenger tires to compensate for the relatively unsophisticated suspension systems on most trailers.

sthoge
07-07-2009, 11:04 AM
Well just to update everyone, I got to re-calculating the mileage and I probably overstated it some what, probably more like around 10k, but either way to take away some confusion, Tires have/had around 50% tread left and I check the air pressure regularly and they were at 50 pounds, in fact the tire even though it doesn't have an tread on it still has 50 pounds so overheating to low pressure is out.
Second, I got the trailer up on Jack stands last night and when I give the passenger side tire a spin it keeps on spinning with very little resistance. The drivers Side tire however won't even make one revolution. There is something deffinately dragging in there.
These have been very good tires, made a couple of trips to Alaska and back. I'm not sold on there being big advantages/disadvantages on the radial verses bias ply. Beings they are load range D trailer tires they have the proper rating for the boat and trailer that I have and the tires show no signs of weather checking at all. I don't disagree that age of the tires may have contributed to the failure.

I think some of you may have missed the part in my post about the hub being extremely hot. Please explain how a tire coming apart from age could cause the hub to be hot and the other side to be normal. Hopefully tonight I'll get the time to tear down the hub and check the bearings and the brakes to see what's going on in there.

SuperD
07-07-2009, 11:35 AM
Two years ago on a trip back from Flaming Gorge I had a bearing seal blow out just before Evanston, WY. I stopped and had the bearing repacked and off I went. About 120 miles down the road, the hub was so hot I left half the skin on my palm on the hub. It turns out that I had a brake problem and the heat from the brakes was what had blown out the bearing seal and was continuing to over heat the hub. So, the symtom sometimes shows up in a different place than the cause for sure.

SuperD
07-07-2009, 11:42 AM
Radial tires are not recommended for trailer use. Bias tires are recommended.
I'm not sure of the reasons for this, but maybe one of the other guys can comment. If you are changing out ten year-old tires, you might investigate this.

You may be confusing car tires versus trailer tires. Trailer tires come in both bias ply and steel belted radials. I would only run the radials on my trailer. I've had both and bias ply just didn't have the tread life the radials provide.

Troutski
07-07-2009, 06:37 PM
How perfect this is, I seem to be burning my tires up one set every 18 months. I run 6 ply bias type with nitrogen gas instead of air, they run cooler and I don't worry about losing air pressure. I have a rather small boat and trailer so I don't run normal car size rims or tires, should I consider up grading to 14" rims and tires? The expense is some what high considering all that one must do, not as easy as just bolting on a new set.
My craft is a 15 foot SmokerCraft Alaskan with a 25hp Merc along with all the extras I can fit into the boat. Twin batteries electric motor, gps, sonar, swivel seats with arms, Bimini top built in hatches three tackle boxes seven rods at all times, down rigger with 10# ball, floors with marine carpet and a three gal fuel tank. I weighed it the other day at the ODOT scale and it weighed in at 641 lbs, maybe I should redistribute the boat on the trailer - forward or back it up some. Any advice would be greatly appreciated...

Chuck

SuperD
07-07-2009, 09:46 PM
Chuck, at 641 lbs, you are sounding pretty light. You need to make sure you are constantly at or near max air pressure and I'd maybe try loading your boat weight or load within the boat more over the trailer axle. Being light, you might be getting a lot of wear from trailer wandering.

Troutski
07-08-2009, 01:45 AM
How does one check the tongue weight, do you weigh it with all your stuff in the boat or just the main stay stuff?

Chuck

Bduck
07-08-2009, 03:18 AM
One thing you want to look at is how are your tires wearing. My new tires(bias) I put on my boat trailer just before the end of the season last year wore out in about 4-5 trips. I was considering replacing the axle when I found a place that aligns trailer axles. With that being done and 2 more tires but radials this time, I'm not wearing out rubber anymore. A new axle can cost $200 plus. Alignment cost $75 plus new rubber. As SuperD mentioned, stay with trailer service tires and run max air press. Nitrogen is an added bonus. Nitrogen will also displace moisture and its non-corrosive. We service our F16's landing gear tires with 300lbs plus with nitrogen. As a matter of fact, several services on our aircraft require nitogen servicing.

Troutski
07-08-2009, 04:59 AM
What a great help you have been, radials it is with the nitrogen as an added bonus.

Chuck

sthoge
07-08-2009, 10:50 AM
Well, the mistery is solved. I pulled the hub off last night and what I found was that part of the lining of the from brake shoe had come off the shoe frame and lodge it's self in with the rear shoe. This would have had the effect of dragging you foot on the brake for a long time. The inner seal was still in place and there was absolutely no sign of any grease in the brake drum at all. The grease around the inner bearing was cooked and the inner race has heat cracks in it. I suspect that this may have been going on for a while and I didn't realize it. Anyway, now I have a bit of rebuilding to be done to get the hubs and brakes back in functioning order as well as purchase new tires.

I like the way the radials handle, so I will be replacing them with another set.

bwhite
07-08-2009, 10:44 PM
Has anybody had problems with bias ply tires going "square" over the winter months? I have had 2 sets go bad seemingly over the winter. Before heading out, I checked air pressures and all was well. It is 150 miles from here to the Gorge and I was barely able to make it back to Vernal's Wallmart with tires that were good when I left home. I replaced them with radials and no more problems. A couple of years later, new boat and trailer, bias ply tires, first trip of the spring, I even let all air out and reinflated. Pulled the boat around town and checked again just to be sure all was good and then headed for the Gorge. Same thing all over again, straight off the mountain and straight to the Wallmart. Both sets had flat spots worn evenly all the way around both tires, sort of like an octagon gun barrel if you will! Replaced that set with radial tires also and have had no problems making the trip for the last 2 springs. Anybody else seen this?

sthoge
07-09-2009, 10:49 AM
Bwhite,
One of the things that I read about trailers is that when storing for any length of time, you should put the trailer up on blocks, then de-inflate the tire to take the pressure off them. I don't know if that would solve the issue or not. My trailer when I bought it back in 1997 had bias ply tires on it and amazingly enough, I had about a 6 inch square chunk of rubber come off one in 1999. I replaced both tires with ST radials at that time and until recently had absolutely no issues with them at all.

Full_Monte
07-09-2009, 02:36 PM
I don't believe that it's important to take the weight off the tires AND de-inflate them. Just jacking up the trailer in the off-season should be enough to keep the tires from developing a flat spot.

Bduck
07-09-2009, 02:44 PM
I agree with Monte. Jacking and taking the weight off is sufficient.

Full_Monte
07-10-2009, 09:36 AM
How does one check the tongue weight, do you weigh it with all your stuff in the boat or just the main stay stuff?

Chuck

The best way is to weigh it when you have it loaded as it will travel. Your hitch weight should be about 10% of the total boat and trailer weight.

smokin' Kokes
07-11-2009, 04:39 PM
i use my low priced infared temp. gun from Harbor Freight to measure tire temps and wheel bearing/brake temps.
helps to spot a dragging brake or bearing too tight or going dry on grease.

i run radial trailer tires under my 20' Bayliner, run cooler ride and track well and long mileage low wear tires. Denmans and Maxxis are my favorite trailer tires