Edward

Thanks, Bob. I appreciate the clarification and advice!!

Edward

John H

Last Wednesday on my way to Mid Ohio I had a bearing go bad within 5 miles of my house. I backed the triple axle 45 trailer over a culvert (no jack that could lift this trailer and two cars) and took off the offending wheel and drove back home. Got the bearing fixed and left Thursday morning for Mid Ohio. Got 30 miles from home and had a tire go flat. Luckily, a truck stop nearby had a huge air jack and I put on the spare...

Made it to Mid-Ohio on Thursday evening. Word to the wise, In Ohio, if your trailer (unloaded) and tow vehicle exceed 8000 pounds, your speed limit is 55, not 65 (regardless of whether you are commercial or not). Don't ask me how I learned that one....

I seriously considered turning around and going back home.

NaroEscape

Had it been me, I would have turned around, only because of the "rest of the story" about our trip to Targa...

Suffice it to say I have been spending the past 9 months rebuilding our race car....

John H

Bob,

As I was driving through Columbus, I thought to myself, "bad luck comes in threes. I wonder what's gonna happen next". When I got pulled over I thought that took care of it. Went on to drop out of the enduro with a substantial overall lead due to an alternator bearing failure.

Veloce Raptor

Sorry to hear. Ohio as a police state is only rivaled by Maryland IMO....

Jimbo951

1) +1 on the bottle jack: I was taking the GF to a Ladies' day event and I blew out my first trailer tire. I pulled out the "2 ton" floor jack and went it it. The trailer axles are not independent. They're connected via a rocker bogie. So to get 1 axle up in the air, it's needs to be jacked way up and take a lot of weight. Between needing a lot of movement and the jack leaking oil, it was pretty dicey.

Before my next trip I got a small bottle jack. Now I use it to lift the trailer frame (get the weight off the bad wheel), then use the floor jack to lift the offending axle. That works great.

After the first blow out, I blew two more tires on the next trip. After the 3rd blowout, I replaced all the *good* tires.

Also I got pretty good at changing trailer tires: I did the last one in about 15 minutes.

2) One of the fellows I know had a *new* cup car and wrecked it at the track. We decided to put my 951 in his enclosed trailer and his damaged cup car onto my open steel trailer. We were caravaning home, and he blew out a tire on his truck (that he had bought used). The truck's PO had lost the security key needed to drop the spare tire on the truck so there was no way to get to the truck's spare.

Moral to these stories? Practice replacing (or at least review) what you'd do in an emergency AT HOME before you need to do it for real on the side of a busy highway.

Bull

Agreed, and I'll throw Washington State into that pig pile also.

shiners780

Three years trailering to the track and I have never carried a spare. I got one last week...let the blowouts begin!

ngoldrich

I had circa 4 blowouts in 2 trips when I first got my last trailer.

Upgraded to 2 more ply tires (12 if memory serves) and that solved the problem - did not happen again.

Norm

Chaos

AAA with RV coverage.

smankow

I had a blowout on PA's Northeast Extension last year coming home from The Glen due to a failure of a valve stem - it had dry rotted. I had all of the stems replaced shortly thereafter (the other tire on the same side of the trailer was about to go). A friend had a blowout last month due to the same issue. The valve stems dry out due to UV exposure.

In PA, my trailer is required to get inspected annually. They check everything from brakes to emergency brake batteries, etc. I'm not sure if they check the bearings annually, but in an inspection on a "new-to-me" trailer, my shop did and found a few bad seals that were replaced.

After my blowout, I bought a trailer-aid and also keep a 3-ton floor jack in the trailer. With the above stories, I may be looking for a 2nd spare tire.


Steve

schvetkaaks

I have that, too, but think of it more for towing needs, or more significant issues. For changing a tire, you call AAA?

smlporsche

On my 24' enclosed Millenium trailer the 5200# Dexter axles have grease fittings on them. Twice a year I give the a couple of shots of grease and (so far) no problems.
I'll have to keep in mind changing the tires out at about 4 years. Sounds like cheap insurance.

Speaking of tires I've heard nothing but BAD things about Carlysle tires. Several friends have had blowouts with them. They're now running Goodyear trailer tires and no blowouts yet.