Bill Gintzel
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2003
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On the way to Int'l Falls from Kansas City via I35 we encountered a very bad stretch of road Southwest of Cloquet, MN.
My trailer has disc brakes I installed myself and had just rebled and checked. In three years I have never encounted any problems with these brakes.
I had just checked the bearings and regreased them prior to the trip. The hubs never were hot when checked at each stop.
I had checked all lug nuts.
On the above stretch of road the left wheel sheared off all 5 lug bolts and the tire and wheel veered off across the interstate. Luckily they did not hit any oncoming traffic. We never found the wheel and tire.
The trailer dropped onto the disc and we were able to stop without losing any control. A good samaritan stopped, got the size and drove 16 miles to Cloquet and purchased a new set of lug bolts and nuts. We did loose the grease cover and the grease fitting on the end of the axle was damaged but that was the only other damage. Another reason to carry a spare wheel and tire.
:huh::huh:
We are at a loss to figure out what happened. We THINK that the bouncing of the trailer might have caused the surge brake to stop the wheel while it was off the ground and then when it hit the road it sheared the bolts?
Has anyone encounted a similar problem or what do you think caused the problem?
My trailer has disc brakes I installed myself and had just rebled and checked. In three years I have never encounted any problems with these brakes.
I had just checked the bearings and regreased them prior to the trip. The hubs never were hot when checked at each stop.
I had checked all lug nuts.
On the above stretch of road the left wheel sheared off all 5 lug bolts and the tire and wheel veered off across the interstate. Luckily they did not hit any oncoming traffic. We never found the wheel and tire.
The trailer dropped onto the disc and we were able to stop without losing any control. A good samaritan stopped, got the size and drove 16 miles to Cloquet and purchased a new set of lug bolts and nuts. We did loose the grease cover and the grease fitting on the end of the axle was damaged but that was the only other damage. Another reason to carry a spare wheel and tire.
:huh::huh:
We are at a loss to figure out what happened. We THINK that the bouncing of the trailer might have caused the surge brake to stop the wheel while it was off the ground and then when it hit the road it sheared the bolts?
Has anyone encounted a similar problem or what do you think caused the problem?
I've never seen anything like that.
