Near disaster ! should of stayed in bed that day

[floater]

Were do i start !

hitched up rib on to the car, SBS braked trailer set off as normal for the beach and a day of boating etc , weather good, light winds, sea flat calm, sun shining, picnic packed, kids wife dog all in the car looking good




15 miles later whilst doing about 50 mph BANG ! out goes the offside trailer wheel
managed to keep control pulled in to the side of the road as look would have it i managed to pull in to a petrol station

jumped out of the car and to my horror the $%^$^$& wheel was on fire flames tyre melting the lot

again as look would have it i managed to get a bucket of water over the wheel and hub etc

it looked quite serious at first and after about 10 buckets of water smoke and steam 20 feet high

all ok

but how did this happen

simple school boy error when i hitched up i conected the safety cable for the brakes to the tow bar as normal but the way that i have always done it is to feed though the tow bar frame and the back on to itself

as i left for the beach there are a couple of sharp left hand turns and at this point i belive that the hand brake was pulled on by the safety cable

i have then driven for 15 miles without realising, this i guess this is a down side having a big 4x4 tow car and realatively light trailer and not feeling the extra drag as it was the first time out for about 3 weeks and thought "it felt heavy"

the drums have got that hot that the tyre has combusted whilst traveling at 50mph

the one thing that P&**$d me off the most was that i was in an area (Abersoch) that it survives on boats and holiday makers and only one person offered any help even the petrol station attandant was that thick that he told my boy off for walking accross the forecourt with his mobile phone in his hand (it was actually an iPod) but offered no assistance to the fact that there was a fire going on 10 yards from the pumps i could of understud it if he had ran a mile, but they just kept serving !!

oh well all's well that ends well

or so we thought !!


Andy

[Northern Tim]

Commiserations Andy,

I've had one or two bad days, but nothing quite so serious!

Will it be sorted for this weekend?

Tim

[floater]

Hi

Yes i got the wheel sorted at the side of the road great to carry a spare but the brakes are shot, infact they are being "removed and Bagged" as we speak as the trailer is braked but only rated to 850kg the Rib is well under that so i dont need a braked trailer really the RIBs about 400kg with bits and about 100 for the engine say 150 for the trailer i reckon with a full tank the whole lot weighs less than 700kg

so iam having the hubs replaced at the moment as well as one was shot although it worked it got very hot on a realativly short tow

but all should be done for next weekeds jaunt

Andy

[Limey Linda]

I never trust my handbrake for that reason. I keep it lashed in the off position just to be safe. Never use it anyway; always use chocks.
Best of luck.

[Top banana]

Andy i rescently did the same as you but both wheels caught fire and we were on the m6. just picked boat up from having covers made, and i can only assume that the ring holding the breakaway cable was snagged.
of we went and i thought the brakes felt a bit stiff, but big 3.7 jeep had no problems pulling it, to this day i dont know why i didnt stop to check.just thought the brakes were binding a bit. towed for 6 mile and just got on the m6 so down went the pedal, and a big artic was frantically flashing from behind.
looked in the mirror and flames were belting out from both wheels. the wheels were cherry red. the lorry driver was tipping his drinking water on the wheels but they kept igniting.Had visions of the tubes melting. luckilly there was a canal runnuing along the motorway, so many trips back and forth with a bucket finnally had the wheels cooling down.A cop car went past but never stopped. but as we made way later on, he pulled me up for going to slow.next day went down to sbs and bought a complete new 1500kg axle.
it was cheaper than buying the seperate drums bearings cables and wheels.
Another check now before starting of is making sure theres plenty of slack on the breakaway cable.

[Neil Harvey]

nearly had a wheel come off on me once, heard a strange noise and pulled in before catastrophy happened, so now look in both mirrors every couple of minutes to check wheels look OK (ie not wobbling)... it's not fun when something like that happens

[floater]

thanks for the comments glad its not just me (well not really glad as its bad )



Top Banana

were you on Porth Dinllian beach yesterday in a yellow Frontera

Cheers Andy

[BruceB]

Been behind the club RIB when a wheel launched itself in the trees on the Rest and be Thankful as well as once watching one of the front wheels of my Landrover launching itself into a garden near Shotts, thankfully I was almost stopped at the time as I could feel the vibration and was slowing down as fast as I could.... Came near to losing a wheel once that had cracked 3/4 of the way round the hub, only stopped when I started hearing a clicking noise going round corners as the wheel worked itself back and forth on the remaing little bit still attached. The wheel was nearly brand new as well but at least the manufacturer replaced both of them when I kicked up a fuss.
Plus the usual stuff like forgetting to put up the jockey, lightboards falling off etc etc.

[Bigmuz7]

Does anyone remember indespension trailer axles, where they were left and right hand threaded .. showing my age .. I was a kid at the time .. but I remember my dads trailer wheels overtaking us on more than one occasion... Hehe those were the days .. fook the traffic regs.... or public safety .. they didnt seem to care,.. and did it cause a problem .. nah!

[Hugh Jardon]

last year i had a wheel bearing fail, the wheel nearly came off but somehow stayed on the axle, however the bearing and components had long since dissappeared. even though the trailer was over 12 months old SBS and Avonride did me proud and provided a complete new 1800kg axle

and the RAC gave me some cash for cocking up the recovery, ie would not come out to start with but after hassel and escalation they realised i was covered.....duuuurrrr


I now have a spare hub and wheel bearings so that any such incident can be remedied in 5 mins