It could have sucked much worse

[Clay Showalter]

So this afternoon around 4:00 I head up to the new how to some stuff for the trip to the beach tomorrow and pick up our little light weight trailer, we are planning on taking.

The boys and I are making a rack to hold beach chairs, poles, etc, I look and notice a dust cap is missing off and axle, walk back there and sure enough it is trashed. Now mind you the last 2-3 times this trailer has been used it was not by me, but by middle son. He used it a couple of times and one of his buddies did also.

When I say trashed I mean trashed, no bearings to speak of, only cone and cup.

I start to take it apart and I am thinking well this sucks, hub is trashed on the back side, spindle looks ok if I can get the cones off. I have no idea how the wheel did not fall off.

Takes an angle grinder to cut apart the inner cone, but it does come off.

Thankfully Tractor Supply, where we got the trailer carries replacement hub assemblies. So for $70 bucks I get it all back together and we should be good to go.

I am thanking God I saw it before we hit the road for a 5 1/2 drive.

 

[Dannmann801]

Good catch, tip your angel.

 

[giles]

Safe travels! Good eye

 

[finelyshedded]

Have a safe and enjoyable trip Clay.

 

["J"]

Damn, good catch. TSC too the rescue. They sell the complete hubs and I always tell folks that’s a cheap insurance policy right there...
Enjoy the beach and family, buddy...

 

[jagermeister]

Good to hear you caught it in time!

Is it a tractor supply (Carry On) trailer by any chance? I bought one a couple years ago. In less than a year, with very minimal use, the left hub went to shit. I pulled everything apart and the bearings were nearly dry! Hardly any grease at all in them! I had to cut the inner race of the spindle just like you did. Really disappointing from a nearly new trailer.

 

[Ohiosam]

 

["J"]

View attachment 104564

I always check the hubs for temps when I get too the lake or stop for gas. They’ll give you warnings if’n your paying attention.

 

[Clay Showalter]

Yea I always check temps, but the trailer had been used several times by my son, so after a good chewing I think he learned to look. I told him that is why the wheels are white lol.

Made it to Carova beach, takes longer to get here than the farm in Ohio.

 

["J"]

Yea I always check temps, but the trailer had been used several times by my son, so after a good chewing I think he learned to look. I told him that is why the wheels are white lol.

Made it to Carova beach, takes longer to get here than the farm in Ohio.

View attachment 104604

That’s crazy, especially when you’re in the same state
As bad as Texas

 

[Clay Showalter]

Well the trip ended the way it started, Wednesday night my oldest son tells me his car says it is not charging. Now this is a 2012 VW Touareg he just bought 2.5 months ago, against the advice of his father. I love VW’s have had several and will have another soon, but the Touareg is a high end SUV, same platform as Porsche Cayenne, & Audi Q7.

It is a damn nice ride, but there was no way in hell anywhere within a 100 miles was going to have an alternator for it, and it is a water cooled alternator at that.

Thursday I sent him to Walmart to get a battery charger, let it charge until Saturday morning. It is a diesel so my plan was to get him off the beach, tires aired up and through the bad traffic in Duck, all this took about an 1.5 hours, sitting in traffic made the cooling fan run and he was able to make it through to the gas station, be then the gauges were freaking out. I told him to park I would head to the closest parts store, which happened to be a NAPA. His battery is under the drivers seat and takes a triple square 10mm bit to get to, wouldn’t you know it napa was out of the 10mm one.

So I say give me the biggest deep cycle battery, with the most amp hours you have. Got some 4 gage jumper cables, put the battery in the floor board behind his seat, ran the cables to the jump post under the hood and off we went. Had a volt meter hooked up to the battery so he he could keep up with voltage.

The goal was to make it as close to 100 miles from home as we could then use AAA. He had the windows down, no radio, nothing.

Started out reading 12.52 volts and 274 miles later he got home reading 12.13 volts, I am still amazed it worked out, little redneck engineering and lots of praying.

Would not have been possible at night or with a gas burner, now to see if the dealership is a stand up place that will help him out.

Like Hank Jr says, country boy can survive