OT -- Sour\'s bash from ...
On my way to the Bash this year, I was about 50 miles away from Steam Corner, I pulled into a rest stop about 5pm. After using the facilities and stretching, I walked around the trailer as I always do. All the straps were tight and the wheels on the driver's side looked ok. Then I walked around to the passenger side. I noticed that the rear tire was tilted, the hub was discolored, smoke was coming off of the hub, and the wheel was very dirty. Right away, I knew that my trailer was not pulling the Jeep anymore.
Thanks to the call list provided by Dale, I called Jeff to let him know what had happened and to ask for help. Jeff offered to pick up anything that I needed. However, we decided that we would just drive the empty trailer back to the camp. Since Heather had not driven the Suburban with the trailer, I really wanted someone with experience to drive it the remaining 50 miles. Jeff and Joel headed out as I went to work on the trailer.
I pulled the Hi-Lift off of the Jeep and proceeded to jack up the trailer. In hindsight, I probably should have taken the Jeep off, but it was still up there. I had a jackstand that I put under the bad axle. I had to look for the right tool to use on the spindle nut. I finally found my 1 3/4" socket, the same one that I use for the trailer hitch and pulled out the impact wrench. I was unable to move the nut at all. At that point, I just removed the tire and strapped the axle up with one of my tie downs.
Jeff and Joel showed up. After looking at the axle, we all had about the same conclusion - toast. We headed back to the camp with Joel driving the Suburban, Jeff in his Jeep, and me following in the CJ. The was the furthest, and fasted, that I had driven the CJ in a very long time. I looked down and saw the speedometer reading 75 to 80 at one point - that was weird. We were probably only doing 65 or so, my speedometer reads fast.
When we got back to the camp, everyone offered to help. Jim from NJ, Pontiac58 I think, set to work on the axle real quick. He pulled out his electric Snap-On impact and had the castle nut off real quick. He then tried to remove the old bearing races with the grinder. One of them came off, but the inner did not want to budge. After assessing the situation again, we decided that the spindle was pretty much shot. It might have been possible to coble something back together, but I would not have trusted it for 270 miles with the Jeep.
Friday morning, Heather and I set off in search of an axle. We drove around about 130 miles looking for every farm supply,trailer, or RV store that we could find between Attica and Lafayette. No one had the axle I needed, but they could all order it to arrive on Wednesday. The tractor supply store was the most promising and disappointing. They carry axles in stock. Unfortunately, their longest axle was 84, wms inches not 95 wms, as needed.
Heather and I decided that our best option would be to take the broken trailer back to Columbus then rent a Uhaul to retrieve the Jeep. We went drove back to attica to retrieve our stuff from the Apple-Inn then headed out for the 270 mile drive home. We made it back about 7pm, just over 4 hours.
We picked up the Uhaul at 730 Saturday morning then drove back to Attica. We got there about 1200 and loaded up the Jeep. We were back on the road a little after 1pm and made it back to Columbus around 6pm. I had the trailer returned and everything unloaded by 730pm.
I learned a few things on this trip...
http://www.axisproducts.com/index.html
I also found Champion, but they appear to specialize in boat trailer parts. They have the axle but they are galvanized and significantly more expensive.
Northern Tool has them as does Etrailerpart.com
Are the EZ-lube axles worth the extra couple of dollars? Supposedly, they let you grease the inner and outer bearings without removing the hub. However, they still recommend removing the hub every 12 months/12000 miles and repacking by hand.
Again, thanks to everyone who helped me on Thursday. The help sure helped my piece of mind. By the way, I think that I am going to buy a loaded spare axle, they are only ~$150. I would like to find away to mount this to the trailer so that it is there should something like this happen again. I can only imagine that Heather and I will venture further and further from home. If something like this happened 500 miles from home, it could have had a drastically different ending...
-- Mike
On my way to the Bash this year, I was about 50 miles away from Steam Corner, I pulled into a rest stop about 5pm. After using the facilities and stretching, I walked around the trailer as I always do. All the straps were tight and the wheels on the driver's side looked ok. Then I walked around to the passenger side. I noticed that the rear tire was tilted, the hub was discolored, smoke was coming off of the hub, and the wheel was very dirty. Right away, I knew that my trailer was not pulling the Jeep anymore.
Thanks to the call list provided by Dale, I called Jeff to let him know what had happened and to ask for help. Jeff offered to pick up anything that I needed. However, we decided that we would just drive the empty trailer back to the camp. Since Heather had not driven the Suburban with the trailer, I really wanted someone with experience to drive it the remaining 50 miles. Jeff and Joel headed out as I went to work on the trailer.
I pulled the Hi-Lift off of the Jeep and proceeded to jack up the trailer. In hindsight, I probably should have taken the Jeep off, but it was still up there. I had a jackstand that I put under the bad axle. I had to look for the right tool to use on the spindle nut. I finally found my 1 3/4" socket, the same one that I use for the trailer hitch and pulled out the impact wrench. I was unable to move the nut at all. At that point, I just removed the tire and strapped the axle up with one of my tie downs.
Jeff and Joel showed up. After looking at the axle, we all had about the same conclusion - toast. We headed back to the camp with Joel driving the Suburban, Jeff in his Jeep, and me following in the CJ. The was the furthest, and fasted, that I had driven the CJ in a very long time. I looked down and saw the speedometer reading 75 to 80 at one point - that was weird. We were probably only doing 65 or so, my speedometer reads fast.
When we got back to the camp, everyone offered to help. Jim from NJ, Pontiac58 I think, set to work on the axle real quick. He pulled out his electric Snap-On impact and had the castle nut off real quick. He then tried to remove the old bearing races with the grinder. One of them came off, but the inner did not want to budge. After assessing the situation again, we decided that the spindle was pretty much shot. It might have been possible to coble something back together, but I would not have trusted it for 270 miles with the Jeep.
Friday morning, Heather and I set off in search of an axle. We drove around about 130 miles looking for every farm supply,trailer, or RV store that we could find between Attica and Lafayette. No one had the axle I needed, but they could all order it to arrive on Wednesday. The tractor supply store was the most promising and disappointing. They carry axles in stock. Unfortunately, their longest axle was 84, wms inches not 95 wms, as needed.
Heather and I decided that our best option would be to take the broken trailer back to Columbus then rent a Uhaul to retrieve the Jeep. We went drove back to attica to retrieve our stuff from the Apple-Inn then headed out for the 270 mile drive home. We made it back about 7pm, just over 4 hours.
We picked up the Uhaul at 730 Saturday morning then drove back to Attica. We got there about 1200 and loaded up the Jeep. We were back on the road a little after 1pm and made it back to Columbus around 6pm. I had the trailer returned and everything unloaded by 730pm.
I learned a few things on this trip...
- First and foremost - All of the guys at the bash were helpful and concerned. Jeff, Joel, and Jim went the extra mile to try to get me fixed. Jim even offered his spare parts, if we could get them to work. Austin,the Hi-Lift guy offered the use of his weldors, if needed. Others offered to do any work needed to make it happen. It just was not in the cards that weekend...
- The Apple-Inn in Attica is a very nice bed and breakfast at a reasonable price, I would stay there again. They would not let us pay for Friday night, even though we made the reservations then canceled late in the afternoon on Friday. Their breakfast was incredible - Grapefruit,cold cereal, Scrambled eggs and Canadian Bacon, then a Belgium Waffle.
- MAINTAIN YOUR TRAILER. I had not touched my trailer since purchasing it. It is 3 years old with, maybe, 5000 miles on it.
- No-one carries parts for an auto transporter on their shelfs.
- My suburban got 14 mile/gallon towing an empty ~2000 lb trailer at 65 mph
- My suburban got 11 mile/gallon towing the same trailer with the Jeep at 65 mph
- Attica does not like me, and gets costlier every year I go... First year, I ran over a truck tire at 2am just East of Indy on my return home. No damage, but it did wake me up. Second year, I put a hole in a trailer tire just West of Indy heading to the bash. I was able to plug it to get me home, but then had it patched ~$20. Third year, bent a rear leaf spring on the CJ7 on Saturday, ~$175 for a new spring shipped from RE. This year..., three days of driving and did not even get to see the badlands. Hopefully, the cycle is broken...
http://www.axisproducts.com/index.html
I also found Champion, but they appear to specialize in boat trailer parts. They have the axle but they are galvanized and significantly more expensive.
Northern Tool has them as does Etrailerpart.com
Are the EZ-lube axles worth the extra couple of dollars? Supposedly, they let you grease the inner and outer bearings without removing the hub. However, they still recommend removing the hub every 12 months/12000 miles and repacking by hand.
Again, thanks to everyone who helped me on Thursday. The help sure helped my piece of mind. By the way, I think that I am going to buy a loaded spare axle, they are only ~$150. I would like to find away to mount this to the trailer so that it is there should something like this happen again. I can only imagine that Heather and I will venture further and further from home. If something like this happened 500 miles from home, it could have had a drastically different ending...
-- Mike
