Don't forget to grease those trailer tires!!

[Markus]

My pocket book is a bit thinner because of my trailer neglect. I had my tires greased earlier this spring, but have forgotten about them ever since.

I lost my front and rear bearings trailering down the 403 to Bronte yesterday. Also destroyed the axel.

I could smell the damage when I got out at the boat ramp. I could see it was bad. I decided to back the boat down the ramp and get it off the trailer. When I pulled the trailer back up, I simply pulled the tire right off with ease. I have no idea how this wheel stayed on??? Lucky it didn't come off on the highway.

Check your hubs regularly and get to know your grease gun. I feel I got away lucky with $400 worth of damage. Don't make the same mistake.

[SkeeterJohn]

Ouch ... I've been meaning to recheck mine over the past few weeks but never got around to it.. I think that's just turned into tonights job !!

You're right about being lucky that wheel didn't come off... that could have been just plain nasty and most boats come off their trailers when they are involved in something.

[FireFox]

Sure sounds like you got lucky there Marcus. Having a boat trailer bearing go on the highway is a vocabulary building experience at the best of times, but I cant even begin to fathom what it would be like on a multi-lane highway. Yikes.

Glad to hear that you were able to get it fixed and no damage to the boat resulted.

Fox

[jammer]

The trailer should be good for another 10,000kms eh Mark??? lol

[Hoover]

well jammer and i were glad to help out, and brad sure got his eyes opened hangin out with the old guys for a day! too bad we were all gettin dirty and had to put some elbow grease into puttin that trailer up! hey do you still want a grease gun? :>

[BASSSTALKER]

God must be a Fish-Hawker


Glad to hear there was no accident!


BASSSTALKER

[Xenos]

Sorry to hear about the mishap Markus, it reminds me of just how much I have been neglecting my trailer. I have already gone through one set of tires this year so I must need grease.

Witch brings up a point can we switch these cheap 510X12 or what ever for real tires? I hate buying a new set every summer, they only seam too last 10-15K.

[roughrider]

If you are going through tires every year,I suggest going to radial trailer tires, I recently bought radials and they wear nicely,not like bias plys.We addressed this problem in the spring on the forum,always check tire pressure before trips because low pressure means hot tires and loss of tread or worse,a blowout . keep them at max pressure rating and always check bearing buddies beforehand,add grease if needed. I am anal about my trailer, being stuck on a trip at the side of road,every time I see a trailer with a wheel missing, I get spooked .If you trailer alot I would change bearings every 3 years. roughrider

[SkeeterJohn]

I once had a blowout on a fishing trip to France. We trailered down all our gear 350 miles crossed the ferry and about 20 miles into france had a blowout while doing 60mph. The guy i was with told me to slow down as he heard a humming sound... no sooner had he said that we heard the pop. We were pretty lucky as the trailer didn't swing around uncontrolably but stayed somewhat inflated allowing us to pull over.

That's something i don't want to happen again as that too could have turned out to be pretty nasty especailly with 18 wheelers zipping past.

[topraider]

It happened to me, this spring.

I was driving in Gatineau on route 366 heading towards the 50 to get back to Ottawa when this guy pulls alongside me gesturing for me to pull over. So I do, and he says my bearing buddy flew off a mile back and my tire was wobbling, and the same thing happened to him, only he lost his tire... anyways, I took stock and proceeded at 5km/hr to the place where I had bought the boat 9 years earlier, which was a couple of clicks away. The axle was ruined, and it cost me $350 to fix. And I considered myself lucky to have broken down in town. I now carry spare bearings

[dana]

yeh greasing the hubs is very inportant

i too once made it home to the driveway and had my wheel FALL off
close wha?

on the radial thing...really...?
from what i have heard ya should get bias because they don't have as much side to side give to them...
but yeh i think radials would last longer..
thern there is the tongue weight thing
too little..very scary..too much...watch out trailer hitch.
good topic

[Seaweed]

Wow Markus! Close one man. Glad you didn`t get burned worse on that deal. I have to say that mid year I need to remind myself that I have to recheck a bunch of stuff... and the grease in the wheels of my trailer is only one thing in a list of many. How many of us have rechecked and swaped out our line... most people say mid year that should be done too... I think we just get too gung ho on the fishing this time of the year and forget about our maintenance stuff. I know that I have to check oil next time out... hope I remember because I was too lazy coming off of the water last time to take a minute to do that. Thanks for the reminder Markus to check everything out. I hope you get back up and running soon... and whew..... glad you dodged that one.

[Markus]

I won't make the same mistake. I guess I forgot how much I actually do trailer my boat around. That trailer has a pile of KM's on it. I'm pretty disapointed with myself.

Grease gun and spare barings will always be in the truck from now on.

[mitch]

When you take your grease gun and apply grease its very easy to overpack the bearing assembly and blow the rear seal leading to failure. Once a year preventative maintenance of removing the hub assembly, cleaning/inspecting the bearings (and replacing if discoloration or nicks are found in the bearing race) and repacking the bearings is probably the best safeguard for premature failure. I'm no mechanical wizard by any means and I can easily complete my trailer in a couple of hours. Mitch

[Markus]

I'm having the bearing buddies installed to take the guess work out of it.