Trailer maintenance

I made a little to-go kit for my tiny HF folding trailer. Pretty sure it has everything to completely disassemble/reassemble the trailer on the side of the road along with registration paperwork taped inside. When lending the trailer out, I hand over this kit along with a spare tire and they should be good to go

 

I found this to be the case when I re decked my deckover trailer. I used green treated lumber and butted them tight expecting they would shrink - and shrink they did. 1/8 or more gap now. If the lumber were seasoned it obviously would shrink as much, but mine came straight from the lumber yard.

 

Yeah...you can really tell how green/wet the treated boards are since they're twice as heavy.
I'd have the yard deliver my boards and they came pretty much all the same and were on a single pallet so they were pretty consistent.
It Sucked Hauling them from the driveway to the backyard when they're that heavy!!

 

You ain't kidding. I had to buy 4 2x8x16 boards and one 2x10x16 and it sucked getting them out to and into the truck by myself. Luckily my son was home to help me carry them to the back of the driveway where the trailer was.

 

Hmm, good thoughts.

Well I've wondered if there's a way to do away with all of it, short of just putting a normal trailer axle under there. But I don't understand enough of the inner workings to know what I can & can't mess with. I'll just plan on counting how many turns it takes to get the nut off, and try to maintain the preload.

Thanks!

 

IMO you need the ring gear to sling the oil so it gets in the tubes and to the bearings.

 

The bearings are sealed, though. I thought I read when I first researching this that with such an old truck, they weren't sealed bearings and the differential fluid lubed them, but when I pulled the axle shafts, they had sealed bearings on them, and I replaced them with sealed bearings. I'm not convinced I need oil out there at the ends of the axle tubes.

Either way, I want enough oil in the diff to keep the gears cool and slippery, and that means fixing the pinion seal leak. I got the old one out last night and will get a new one ordered, and I counted how many turns to get the nut off. Sounds like that many, plus maybe another half turn, will be the ballpark right preload. I think this diff is tough...It had been run for who knows how long with low, old, crusty oil. There was all kinds of debris in there. Not metal chunks, almost like dried, crusty bits of worn out oil, if that's even possible. I cleaned things out as well as I could. Now it's got new axle bearings, oil, and soon a seal to hold that oil it...hopefully it's good for a while. Don't really like spending all this time and money on a beat to crap 1969-ish trailer that just came along as part of the purchase of my slide-in camper. It's nice to have the trailer, but I wasn't looking for a trailer...and now it's being a pain!

So far it's still worth it to me to have the trailer, but any more maintenance and I may just unload it.

 

Cool. Good luck. Didn't realize those were sealed bearings.

 

https://www.nhtsa.gov/recalls

Here is a very useful website if you don’t already know about it. I recently found this website very helpful while getting some recall repairs done on our travel trailer. Originally I was only aware of one recall that pertained to our TT which was for a connection point and o-ring on the manifold for the Dometic stove. I was asked by the repair shop for the recall number and didn’t have it on hand so I had to do a little research since the paper copy of this notice was lost in the chaos of moving out of state. I discovered this site on a Jayco forum and when I typed in my VIN there was actually two more recalls that I wasn’t aware of, one being the propane regulator and another for the rear roof access ladder that on some models actually blocked the emergency exit window from opening more than a few inches. Luckily ours was not affected by this one but both LP related recalls could be very dangerous if we weren’t aware of them. We only ever got one notice from Jayco about the Dometic stove recall. It affected over 20,000 serial numbers on various models both older and newer than our TT. Why this wasn’t fixed before it was sold if they were aware of the recall is beyond me but I didn’t receive the notice until about a year after it was purchased. I will be using this website to search the VIN on any vehicle or trailer prior to purchase in the future. Hope this helps!
https://www.nhtsa.gov/recalls

 

Well, new pinion seal is in. I haven't driven anywhere, but it hasn't leaked in 24 hours. Before, it was definitely leaking just sitting there. We'll see what happens next time I get it on the road. I hope...that now it'll be maintenance-free for a few years. I just replaced the wiring and turn signals this spring, and differential oil. While it annoyed the heck out of me to have to pull the axle shafts and differential gears just to replace the oil, it turns out it was a good thing. The bearings definitely needed to be replaced, and now a new pinion seal too. As long as my axle seals don't start leaking the first time I get it out on the road...I think I'm good.

 

I always enjoy your trailer stories. They remind me of my childhood...

I think something is missing there. Can't quite put my finger on it. I'm sure it woulda been fine..

 

Hey guys, I’m looking for a car trailer to tow my jeep. It’s a 4 door and weighs about 6 thousand pounds. I would like to get an aluminum trailer to save weight. Do you trust aluminum? Also, for that weight, would 2 3500 lb axles work? Thanks

 

Haha. I don't remember the HD dump trailer, just the time you went to go pick up a buddy and his stranded jeep and seemed to blow a tire every 70 miles.

 

Like @ColoradoTJ said, you would be over the axle rating of a standard 7k (dual 3.5k axle) trailer. I’d look for dual 5k axles or even dua 7k axles; the trailer will be rated for 10k or 9999 lbs depending on your state (the difference being for registration/tax/license recs), or 14k if you go for dual 7k.

I have a 7k car hauler and a 10k deckover. Tires, brakes, axles, etc, aren’t much more expensive for the 10k trailer, but once you step up to a 14k the price goes up dramatically. For the few times I’ve needed a 14k trailer, there’s a rental place 15 minutes away that actually does a decent job maintaining their fleet. Knock on wood.. I wish I would have gone with a 10k car hauler, but I got such a good deal in the 7k and I was in a rush for it, it works great for what I need.

I also have an aluminum 7x16 enclosed that is my workhorse. It weighs all of 1600 lbs empty with 7k capacity. I pull it several times a month, one of which is is usually 5-7k lbs for a couple of hours round trip. It has held up very well and pulls exceptionally well. The weight savings gives me almost as much capacity as as a 10k trailer so it was worth the extra coin at the time. Unfortunately, the price for that trailer has almost doubled since I purchased it 5 years ago.

In the case of a car hauler, I’d prolly stick with steel, but with a larger main tube unless you have the extra money and really need the weight savings. Then I don’t see anything wrong with it unless you really plan on hammering on it to get to the trails. Mine sees occasional gravel roads and is fine.

 

They probably fixed the one blown out tire and sent it back out the next day without even thinking about it. There should absolutely be a saftey inspection checklist for every piece of rental equipment when it comes back in and before it goes out. They probably try to dodge this and pencil whip as much as possible to avoid liability/accountability when stuff like this goes south. Glad you got your $300 dollars back at least, what a hassle!

 

I think common sense says if you lose one tire on a tandem axle you replace both on that side if the blowout happens while loaded. I actually replaced all four since the tires were close to 4 yrs old.

 

I learned my lesson on pulling axle shafts to replace bearings, and deciding not to replace the axle seals. Everything was fine for over a month...till I parked on a slant to one side for a couple days. Saw the dreaded gear oil running out of the drum onto the inside of the tire. My guess is that the axle seals weren't leaking before because there was so little oil in the differential (this is an old Ford truckbed trailer with the rear axle/differential intact).

So now I'll be pulling the axle shafts again. It's possible I damaged them while pulling the shafts, but it's more likely they were decades past their prime and if the rear diff actually had more than a couple pints of oil, they would have been leaking before.

 

Public service announcement:

When adjusting your trailer brakes, don't get too aggressive when the star nut will tighten the pads but not loosen it back even though you move the pawl out of the way.

Especially don't break your "good enough for the job" screwdriver and lose the piece inside the brake drum. This will require you to take the wheel, bearing and drum off just to get it out.

Double especially don't over tighten the pads first and then break your wrong tool for the job. It makes the drum very, very, very, very difficult to remove.

In an RV storage lot.

After a rain.

Surrounded by mosquitoes.

And you have to pee.

 

I'll make sure to pee before I attempt this job.

 

Most of my towing miles are boat trailers. The few things I'll add to this discussion.
1. Before a long tow I jack up each wheel to give it a spin and shake to make sure there is not too much play in the bearing.
2. I use 4 conductor light wire from Ancor with heat shrink connectors. I don't use the trailer frame as the ground for tail/running lights.
3. Check your jack and/or carry a jack that will lift your trailer. Same for the lug wrench.

Ancor Marine Grade Electrical Flat Trailer Tinned Boat Cable

https://www.amazon.com/Ancor-Marine-Electrical-Trailer-Tinned/dp/B000QD5KBA

 

I don't know anything about boats, but how do you launch that without drowning your truck?

 

Jib crane