Spring has Sprung!

[dkirsop]

Did my winter haulout on Monday this week. Everything according to plan until I pulled the boat out. Then a strange noise started coming from the trailer. At first glance I did not notice the problem but about 400m later the smoke coming from the right rear tire was impossible to ignore! The right rear spring had broken, the fender had settled on the tire and the bolts holding the fender to the trailer deeply gouged the tire.

To get the trailer home I removed the fender, used a bar clamp to keep the back axle roughly aligned with the front axle and drove the remaining kilometre at 10kph. What would normally have been a 30 minute chore became a 2.5 hour ordeal. I am thankful I was close to home.

I have faithfully rinsed my running gear with Salt-Away after every launch and retrieval. I was not even contemplating a catastrophic failure. Now I will do a full inspection every year. Will be picking up a beefier set of springs and hardware this Monday.

Ouch!.jpeg

Snapped Spring.jpeg

Gouged Tire.jpeg

Fender.jpeg

Gouging Bolts.jpeg

[dkirsop]

The brakes were already on my list for servicing this fall.

[WillieC]

Not fun. Glad you made it home safely.

[ssrig]

Crap! I guess you never know what is really going on with these trailers?
I had a similar episode launching this past summer, I hooked the truck to the trailer and started pulling it out of its parking spot to hit the high tide for launch and noticed one tire not turning, dragged it around for a bit to see if it would unstick but no way, pads seized to the drum and was tough to get off, my brother in law was with me and he knew what to do, we jacked that axle up, pulled the wheel then took the outside bearing off so that we could jimmy the drum off the brakes. Put the drum less brake pads back on and got the boat in the water, I have a fair size truck so braking is not a problem. I too after every launch power wash the trailer with Salt Away but it’s hard to get into the drum area.

[WillieC]

I have the rubber torsion bars on my trailer. I’m waiting for one of them to fail with no warning.

No DAing for me.

[Burton]

Great title to your post.
Our aluminum trailer has tired tires— rusty springs—only five miles to harbor dock for the season. Now you’ve got me thinking!

[dkirsop]

It is 1.5 miles from the marina to my house. I think part of the problem may be that I don’t use the trailer enough.

[DesertAlbin736]

I have the rubber torsion bars on my trailer. I’m waiting for one of them to fail with no warning.

No DAing for me.

Yah. Me two. I already have a hub on one of the axle swing arms slightly out of alignment, which "eats" tires prematurely. No way to correct without replacing the axle...or the trailer. Or just buying new tires until it finally and catastrophically breaks completely.

20220327_133442.jpg

tirewear.jpg

As the distinguished Canadian rock star Neil Young says, "Rust never sleeps"!

[ssrig]

I sure like how those axles have all the brake equipment exposed for easy cleaning.

[LopezMike]

My torsion axles have drum brakes so washing them out is a difficult proposition at best. Some day I plan on stripping the backing plates of all parts and going at then with the milling machine. Make big openings so I can get at stuff with the hose. I have plumbing attached to flush out the brakes but they don't do very good job.
Also, I have had really good service from my oil bath hubs. If any water gets in there it is obvious. Milky looking oil. Then just pull over. Drain the fouled oil out and replace. I'd like to change over to disks but with two axles the bucks start to pile up rapidly.

[dkirsop]

You can buy rinse kits for drum brake systems that have spray heads which attach to the back plates. They work well and are not expensive.