Some words to the wise about trailers

[Full_Monte]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

It looks like this is a common occurrence... does anyone know why it happened in the first place?

 

[Lundman]

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]

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]

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]

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]

What are your thoughts on applying a small amount of grease on the ball prior to hook-up?

 

[Dropshot]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

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.

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

 

[Bduck]

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.

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.

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]

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.