Some words to the wise about trailers

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sthoge said:
I had a trailer mishap this weekend and the mistery is yet to be solved......
Click to expand...

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.
 
10 year old trailer tire and 20k miles and there is a mystery? laugh hystlaugh hyst
 
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.
 
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
 
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.
 
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.
 
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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.
 
Full_Monte said:
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.
Click to expand...

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.
 
Tires...

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
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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?
 
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.
 
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.
 
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Troutski said:
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
Click to expand...

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.
 

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