Lost a wheel bearing

[Miriam C.]

Glad to hear you are home safely!

[chorizon]

I'm glad everything worked out Mike.

A long time ago I was broke down on the side of the road in my trusty (not so much) 'ol 1980 Mazda GLC.

While I was wrenching on my car a guy with a big tandem-axle trailer literally pulled to a stop in front of me with a smoking wheel-hub.

He asked me if I had the tools to get him going again (which I just happened to have) and I helped him get back on the road, which he was very grateful for.

He wanted to give me some cash, which I declined, and took off. He had another 1400 miles to go. I was only 3 miles from home that day.

Point is, Providence just...happens...
once again glad everything worked out OK.

[Wolffarmer]

Did you use a surge coupler to utilize the hydraulic brakes and did you hook up the parking brakes on the drums so you can just pull a lever and lock the brakes?

Cheers,

Gus

Naw, I ripped every thing resembling a brake part off. Axle had been setting the weeds for years and they was pretty corroded anyway. I would like to chuck the hubs in a lath and cut the drum off of the hubs.

Randy

[Wolffarmer]

WHOA, WHOA, WHOA there turbo.

Your gonna have to give details on that. You have a write up on your trailer somewhere? I love Rabbits. I hadn't heard of someone doing that yet.

I have some pics in my album. I used the springs and that gives it a real nice ride but I should have left the shocks on somehow. Might still do that. The real trouble is the spring is nice and long and FLAT. makes the frame real high with the spacers you got to build. Then the inside from tire to tire is not enough for a 4 foot sheet of plywood. For that I made spacers from 1x4 inch iron to go between the spindles and the axle tube. If you have ever worked on the rabbit pickup you will know. The spindles bolt on to the tube. I am going to make some different spacers to widen it 1/4 inch and lower the trailer about 1 1/2 or 2 inches.

Randy

[urban5]

I also have been looking at front wheel drive rearends. Guess what I found, a 2006 wrecked Chrysler town and country minivan has 48" spring centers on the rear idler axle. It also uses fiberglass springs, and is a 4 in drop axle. The great thing for me is it is the same lug pattern as my Jeep. Think I will be making some changes soon.

[Wolffarmer]

I have thought about a mini van axle. I could use one with a 5 lug 5.5 inch lug pattern

Randy

[DMcCam]

I'm very glad for your outcome on this episode Mike! Perhaps you're right that we can all learn from it.

I'm thinking that a start of season check list including repacking the bearings is a good idea. Maybe having a bearing kit with a grease gun and a spare spindle in the tongue box couldn't hurt either. Making a practice of a quick bearing check at every stay-over just because seems like it would be worth the piece of mind too. Not to be paranoid just practical; I sure wouldn't want to ruin all the hard work and money spent on a teardrop because of 'assuming' things are good. Hope for the best, plan for the worst. As Edna Mode said, "luck favors the prepared."

All the Best, Dave

[BrwBier]

Too bad about the bearing, but what sticks in my mind from the story is 1.5 hours, donor parts, $50. I would call that an outstanding outcome. I think more should be said about who they were. Its not every day you get service like that, it restores faith in people again.
Brwbier

[Wolffarmer]

Too bad about the bearing, but what sticks in my mind from the story is 1.5 hours, donor parts, $50. I would call that an outstanding outcome. I think more should be said about who they were. Its not every day you get service like that, it restores faith in people again.
Brwbier

YOu have a point there, I didn't notice the time and all in the original post

[mikeschn]

Too bad about the bearing, but what sticks in my mind from the story is 1.5 hours, donor parts, $50. I would call that an outstanding outcome. I think more should be said about who they were. Its not every day you get service like that, it restores faith in people again.
Brwbier

Yea, these people were good. We arrived at the garage just after 12:00, and the two mechanics had just gone out to lunch. The owner and his wife were in the office. We were told it would be an hour before the mechanics came back... that maybe we would want to go to the restaurant and grab some lunch. So that's what we did.

When we got back from the resturant at 1:00 we found that the owner, instead of waiting for the mechanics to get back, had pulled the wheel, found the donor trailer in his back yard, pulled the parts from the donor, and had been working on the spindle trying to smooth it out.

When we arrived, all that was left to do was put the new parts on. The mechanic had it done before I could finish typing my post on the forum.

We were impressed!

As you can see, there's not much to this town!



Mike...

[Dale M.]

There is something about small towns, they have real people in them...

Dale

[2bits]

+1 on the small town. If you were in a big city no one would help you, but a small town, they will help you and not charge you just for the entertainment!

[asianflava]

Lucky you, when I broke down I had to stay an extra night because the repair place didn't have the materials to make me a new tongue. Their steel supplier didn't have the 2x3x3/16 that I requested so they went ahead and used 2x4x3/16.

They were really great, tried their best to get me back on the road as soon as they could.

[Wild Bill]

Glad you made it home safely Just disassembled, cleaned, inspected, and repacked the hubs on my project trailer, Wrote on the brake drum the date. I plan to purchase a set of bearings seals, and tube of grease to carry along. When on the road when I stop I touch each hub and they should just be warm, not hot. Then give the wheel a tug and check the lug nuts. If you wanted to be hi tech you could get one of those Laser temp guns from Harbor Freight as long as you knew what the normal operating temp of your hubs were. . This would make a great little seminar at a gathering, Bearing repack 101 and actually do someones trailer. Have a raffle to see who wins the repack. Would need an good auto parts or Farm supply store close for the correct seals and bearings if you found bad ones. Harbor Freight trailers are metric and a different animal. Some dexter axles have a grease fitting in the center of the spindle and a hole that exits near the rear bearing to add grease and force water out, Used on marine service trailers. Hub cap will have a black rubber cover that pulls off to reveal the grease zerk. Mikes roadside drama is everyones warning to get theirs done! I recommend every other spring or every 3rd depending on how many miles you travel in a year. Bill

[Conestoga]

Blessings to you all.. and extra for Bob Henry.
This forum may have saved me from disaster.
Slim chance that it will happen now, so we'll never know for sure ;-)
Yesterday I pulled the hubs off my trailer.
There was no cotter pin on the driver's side.
Although it was still holding solid, it was a mess.
It had apparently gotten so hot at some point that the nut and washer
were nearly fused to the bearing.
(Starboard side was in good shape, so it wasn't driver error.)