Monday 26 November 2012

Adventures with The Trailer. .



A little time ago my able assistant and I were heading towards the local tip with the trailer well loaded.  All was well and this was not the first time we had made such a journey. Then, as we got near to our destination, I imagined I could smell burning, and suddenly there was a terrific bang!  I thought at first ‘engine trouble!’  -- but on stopping to inspect discovered the tyre had been catching against the trailer side, got very hot and so burst!  The solid axle had twisted to cause this to happen and a major repair was needed.
So what could we do?  We could not leave the disabled trailer here on a public road and it would be very expensive to get it removed. Our first task was to empty the trailer. We loaded the contents into the car and took them the short distance  to the Tip.
It then took more than two hours to get the empty trailer back home. This including picking up the spare wheel, freeing the jammed wheel hub and lots of ingenuity to keep the axle in approximately the right position so it could be towed. We had to keep stopping to realign the axle and I/we really thought the mission was impossible! But finally, by some miracle, we got the trailer home and into the back yard. Here it rested for two months or more and the axle was taken to a local garage for some patching together,
Then recently, after lunch, we tried again to fix up our old friend. We added bolts to the axle to help keep the patched welding together. Also we ran a piece of angle iron from the axle to a wooden  block to stabilizer the angle and stop axle movement.
“Why don’t you just buy a new trailer’ people have asked me. Well” I said “I like this trailer it’s been with me for so long and while I have had 3 or 4 different cars ---    ‘Now  I decided to go to Lidle and take the trailer, empty, for a trial run.
I get onto that twisty lane near the church, there is sudden scraping noise and I notice a small wheel overtaking me on my LHS, running in the grass and foliage at the side of the road! I realise that the nuts on the wheel hub were not tight and so the wheel had come off! At first I thought our under carriage repair had failed - so it could be worse.
So think I “ it’s poss. to borrow 2 nuts from the wheel still in place to fix back the wheel now in the hedge. I ring DMB who comes along with the correct wheel wrench. On Dorrette's arrival she manoeuvred the wheel in position while I lifted the trailer up. We went home and wheeled the trailer to it’s parking spot.
Just another day and the Trailer, with lots of TLC, is back in use.  
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