Share your trailer towing horror stories... [Archive]

tsm1mt

04-10-2002, 10:00 AM

Here's a write-up of my boo-boo (http://tigger.tmcom.com/~tsm1/scout/jpg/racing/2_10_2001/2_10_2001.html)

Fairly humorous and colorful account at the URL...

Summary -

Finally bought a car trailer. Lots of miles flat-towing my Scout II behind my Scout II with no problems.

Trailer arrives, hooked it up to my 1/2T Travelall (longer wheelbase, wider.. this is a good thing, right?)

Scout wouldn't fit on nose-first, so we backed it on.

http://tigger.tmcom.com/~tsm1/scout/jpg/racing/2_10_2001/1.jpg

(Hmm.. tongue weight?)

My first time towing a trailer with the Travelall.

ThermoQuad was rich and felt low on power (didn't figure out how to tune it until much later)

Anyhow, left breakfast and my buddy said something about getting a good run at the north pass..

So I layed into it.

Went over the expansion bridge and bounced a few times up/down.. started swaying off the other side of the bridge.

I stupidly STUPIDLY tried to steer out of it. DUMB.

Started oscillating violently back and forth.

HARD.

Everything in the rear of the T'all was slamming one inner quarter, then other other.

Trailer was slamming the rear bumper on one side, then the other.

I remember, "Hey, I have trailer brakes.. apply brakes to straighten it up."

Pull the lever. Still fishtailing violently, slamming stuff around in the back, but now I hear the trailer tires howling along with the rear tires on the Travelall as it's pushed side to side.

"Hmm.. that didn't do much"

Kept whipping back and forth for what seemed like forever.

"OK, I can't just keep this up..."

Waited for it to swing around relatively straight, then dynamited the brakes (tow-rig brakes, which operated trailer brakes).

Straightened right up
Sucked in a deep breath and continued down the road in a controlled manner when I looked in the rearview and saw my Scout with the one front tire off the trailer.. so we pulled over.

I busied myself jacking the Scout up and pushing it back on the trailer and re-securing it - anything to keep my mind occupied so I'd stop shaking.

One of my buddies was behind me over the bridge and saw me start whipping back and forth.. slowed WAY down and started taking up both lanes to block traffic, waiting for the yardsale.

"That was SOME driving! I've never seen anyone pull out of something like that. I was waiting to pick up the pieces.."

He later remarked it was the worst accident he'd never witnessed (or something like that)

Rest of that trip was MUCH slower. MUCH.

Read David's response linked on the web-page link at the top. It's worth reading, too.

Passengers in the back later remarked, "You know it's going to be a bad accident when you have time to look for the seat belts.." (I tell everyone to strap in all the time.. I didn't double check them).

When we got under way again, EVERYONE was buckled. :D

I later put new shocks all around and put skinny tires on the front of the Scout so it would go on nose-first and that made a big improvement in how it all handled, and made it tolerable.

I never did get the broken anti-sway bar fixed - finally removed it last fall.. after I bought my new tow rig.

http://tigger.tmcom.com/~tsm1/scout/jpg/racing/8_25_2001/12.jpg

I went overkill.

From a 1/2T (6,000lbs GVWR) 4x4 Travelall with D44s front/rear, 392/auto, 3.73s, 119" WB and a broken anti-sway bar..

To a '74 IH 200 9000lbs GVWR 2wd "Travelette" 4 door long-box. 166" WB, big front and rear anti-sway bars, huge IH Corporate rear end, 4.30 gears, 4spd stick, and a 345. (built 392/5spd goes in this fall)

The Truck doesn't even notice the trailer.

Lance

04-10-2002, 10:04 AM

Originally posted by The Jerk
lance has a good flat towing one that includes a ghost ride and a cadillac. jiMMy

:D
I was flat towing my Land Cruiser several years ago, and was at a 4 way intersection. I turned left, and all of a sudden the truck felt like it had more power. I looked back to see my Land Cruiser rolling across the intersection by itself, heading straight for a parking lot (park-n-ride) full of cars. :eek: it jumped the curb, and slammed into a 80's Cadillac that was parked there with a For Sale sign on it. :rolleyes: Moral of the story? Use a GOOD towbar, and make sure you hook up the saftey chains properly!!!

GloNDark

04-10-2002, 10:04 AM

I have no horror stories...but all I can say is, if a guy named Casey Dallaire ever offers you a ride in his Cummins dually dodge, with the jeep on the trailer. TURN IT DOWN!! Crazy martha fawker let me tell you. You wanna talk high speeds and 10 wheel power slide?? HA!! He is king trailer speed fool. :flipoff2:

oldjeep

04-10-2002, 10:19 AM

Last winter. Was towing my flatty on a 14 ft trailer with surge brakes. Started going down an icy hill, and I could feel the trailer moving around. Pressed on the brakes a little and the trailer went sideways and then started pitching side to side. At this point the surge brakes can't do any good so I had to hit the throttle to try to straighten it out and get off the hill. Got about 1/2 way down when the flatty dropped a tire between the treads on the trailer, one of the straps poped off with all of the pitching around. Strangely enough this actually helped, when the tire hit it started dragging and straightened the trailer out.

Got the whole mess limped into a rest area where I had to try to reload the jeep bymyself. had to jack it up with the highlift and then push it off sideways multiple times till I got it back where it belonged.

Moral of the story - surge brakes and Ice, not a good combo.

desertCJ

04-10-2002, 10:27 AM

Well I consider flat towing my jeep from Oregon to California over the Siskiyous in the dead of winter with snow on I-5 a horror story in it's self:eek: I made it OK, but if any of you west coast guys have ever driven that grade you'll know what I'm talkin about. I"ve never wanted to be able to use the brakes on my jeep more in my life!Needless to say it got kinda squirrely on some of the downhill turns.My point...........DON'T FLAT TOW IN THE SNOW!:flipoff2:

welndmn

04-10-2002, 10:33 AM

Hmm
Make sure your conections are tight!
My trailer brakes came unplugged going down Ice House :D, i was using an adapter, now i tape them all together, It sucks trying to stop going down that hill, with no trailer brakes

#2
Flat towing the EB, my friend sped around a turn that had loose gravel on it, well duh we spun out!, then flug the EB like a bitch into the side of the truck, snapping the tow bar, then the EB came to rest in a ditch

#3
Riding in the f250 after they just bought a 5th wheel trailer, going over the altommont pass, the 5th wheel came loose and LUCKLY came to red on the bed rails
Lesson learned, Don;t let other people hook up your trailer!
I still have monster dents in the bed to remind of that, could of been worse though, if it did not hit the bed the trailer would of probally been chaseing me down the hill

TRD

04-10-2002, 10:34 AM

i towed my friends cj2a to placerville and we were dicking around on the fire trails when his column shift broke. We hooked up the tow bar and i was doing fine until i started to over heat (really bad) so i would haul ass up the hills and compression brake down them to help cool the motor (it was working). Untill i got to a really steep hill and was going a little fast at the bottom when It made a right hand 90 degree bend. i steered right and his willys tried to go left. fucked up the tow bar really bad but didn't dammage any thing else.

previously on that trip i went into an 8-wheel slide and recovered but that was due to water in the road.

RE:Todd

04-10-2002, 10:43 AM

Originally posted by sceep

Yeah.. but arent there little stickers on those trailers that say "speed limit 55" :confused:

highway speeds around here is 75mph 1985, speed limits were 55MPH :D:D:D.

Kyron

04-10-2002, 10:47 AM

Some friends going to the 'con on a FRIDAY afternoon with a early bronco on a trailer. They put the bronco to far forward on the trailer and it sliced a trailer tire.... **This is happenes within 8 miles of the BAY BRIDGE in SF** so they replace the tire and move the bronoc back on the trailer.... then on the approch to the bay bridge *IN bumper-to-bumper TRAFFIC* going about 50+, the trailer startes to jack knife, throwing the bronco on its roof spinng down I80 in its own lane in front of a new LEXUS.... it never hit anything!!

It even made the local news and I heard about it on a raido traffic report.....

It took 3 flat bed tow trucks to remove every thing...

the Pick up truck was a lowered 1/2 ton chevy with a C-section ,SO the frame from the cab back of the truck just "ripped" off...

The trailer's frame got pretty twisted .....

The bronco was "drivable" but the CHP wouldn't let him drive it away.....

the moral?? LOL make sure the load is about 60% toward the front of the trailer AND NEVER try to "brave" friday afternoon traffic through SF with a trailer/load your not to sure of......:nuke:

ForestCam

04-10-2002, 11:00 AM

Seeing as how I told my story of stupidity in another thread I'll tell you about a guy I worked with years ago.

He had just finished building a VW sand rail and was flat towing it up to the dunes behind a van for it's first trial run. Was going down a dirt road at about 50 when he hears this "clunk" (ball broke), he checks the rear view mirror and watches his brand new rail heading off into the woods. to make a long story short, it took him and a buddy all afternoon (the next day) to torch the twisted up cage off a big oak tree and load the pieces onto a flatbed!:D

He is now a firm believer in saftey chains!

MattS

04-10-2002, 11:08 AM

Not mine but friends.

If you are driving it is YOUR responsibility to check the hookup and safety chains. Buddy thought the other guys locked the hitch down but they didn't. 16 ft enclosed trailer came off ball after 20 miles of highway driving. Destroyed the crank down and 2 of the 4 tires after it swung out sideways at 75 mph. The only thing that saved him was it was empty and he was towing with a crew cab dually.

1500 Suburban towing $30,000 Crownline boat. Jackass pulls in front of us and slams on brakes for no reason. The trailer has those goofy tongue activated brakes. They lockup and won't unlock. The boat ended up next us jack knifed because the driver would not let off the brakes to pull away from the boat. 200 feet of black marks and smoke and we finally stopped. Flat spotted trailer tires down to the cords. :D The trailer now has real brakes and new tires!!

snowchucker

04-10-2002, 12:18 PM

Was unloading my rig from the trailer. Released the straps and all of a sudden it just starts rolling forward. Try to hold it back as i see my rig roll off the front of the trailer towards the back of my brothers brand new chevy. Luckily a 12' x1/4" x 6" piece of steel in the back of the truck decided to impale my brand new headlight and stop the truck. The jack mechanism wedged between the radiator and motor also helped.
Lesson: Make sure its in gear, and weld a stop bar on the front of your trailer.

Bigguy

04-10-2002, 12:44 PM

We borrowed a grill one time that was built in a 300 gal tank. We had used the cooker and were taking it back to the owner when the pipe behind the hitch broke, the "safety chain" snapped and the cooker started to cartwheel. We were just approaching an overpass when it happened. The trailer, with hot coals now going everywhere cartwheeled over the overpass and down to the road below. It fell just over a parked tanker truck, missing it by inches. Just so happened that no one was coming up the road. The trailer landed wheels down nose up at about 30 degrees and sustained almost no damage. Just 5 feet (maybe less than that) and we would have had a huge fireball and multiple deaths. Straightened some of the pipe, welded on a new hitch and took it back to the owner.

John Deere Ranger

04-10-2002, 01:59 PM

I was towin a modded Bronco II that weights 2800 lbs and the trailer that weighs 1000 lbs (home built) and pullin it with a borrowed F150 Supercrew 10000 miles :) I wasn't fimiliar with the road and a railroad crossed the road at an angle and iwas runnin a solid 80 when I seen the rail road bump well i hit it at 60+ and got a little air.... the trailer looked like it was gonna fall to pieces... just cracked a cheep Northern hub.... replaced it no big deal but man it look halarious seein that tailer in the air..

John Deere Ranger

04-10-2002, 02:03 PM

Flat towin a my bro's jeep while we just welded the Rear and it wouldn't flat tow like it use to so I'd just sit in the jeep and he'd pull it where ever we was goin ( this is before we built a trialer) Never got pulled over but the cops seen us a couple of times...... Even got on the interstate like that for a couple miles..... yea I know REDNECKS i know we is dumb:jeep3: :jeep3: :cow: :cow: :goofball:

coyote

04-10-2002, 02:29 PM

Towing a friends boat trailer home from the lake after spending years out their in the desert sun and sand. The boat wasn't worth much but had a fairly new engine on it....after the dirt road and finally hit the pavement of route 60 and see people honking their horns and finally see the lights of a local....glance back at the boat and all's well but flip the mirrors to see the tires and the fire was good and going by the time I got pulled over the boat was involved and thankfully a tow truck arrived and pulled the motor off......and we let the boat burn...the good part is that the insurance company said it was a classic and asked for picture's...and we didn't have any but they settled for $4500 and didn't jack my rates up...said something as to why but can't remember....

spinalguy

04-10-2002, 02:55 PM

I left Toronto to Telico via NYC and DC. We were just 2 hours from Ashville, N.C. when all of a sudden the trailer BROKE off! All my lights went out and the engine quit. In the errie silence we heard a sound like a giant basketball bouncing down the hill behind us. The sound was intertwined with the odd metal crunching noise. i prayed the frickin trailer would stay on the highway and not go over the edge into ????? We got lucky, the trailer stayed up with all our possessions but my bikes were toast. We flagged down a car and than a jeep stopped to help us. Luckily, we were in the middle of nowhere but a WELDING shop was 2 miles away. UNfrickinbelievable!!!! We were on the road the next day and soon in Tellico. Lesson learned???? Reinforce the tongue.
http://www.fourwheelstampeders.ca/albums/album28/aaa.thumb.jpg

Kevbo

04-10-2002, 03:20 PM

Bronco-II pulling 5x8 U-haul (Nope, this is not a repeat of Todd's story). Loaded pretty heavy...probably about 2500#, which is a lot to be towing with a B2.

Was on I-25, B2 handling trailer well, doing 75 (speed limit).
Which is fast to be towing with that rig.

Saw a big, odd looking bird fly upward from median. About size of a large grouse, but ruddy brown, and not really flapping like most birds do.... I like big birds, so I start trying to figure out what kind it is.

As I get closer I realize that it is not a bird. It is a large rock, It is no longer climbing...it is now coming downward, and it is heading for my nose....no, not the grill of the B2, the one on my face.

I swerved hard, just enough that the rock missed windshield, but caught the A-piller, scratched side window. took out my side mirror., and left a pretty good dent int the rear of the window frame.

A tire-squeeling swerve, at 75, pulling a trailer is not something I'd want to repeat. Ever. Not really sure why my shorts stayed clean and dry.

It was a little wild, but the trailer behaved pretty well. I had put everything heavy in the front, and had some leftover space at the rear. Everything was tied down securly inside. When I got home, I had to use a jack to lift the tounge off the ball. (the little U-hauls don't come with a jack) so it was well over 250# on the tounge.

Two lessons here:
1) Shit happens, so don't plan on being able to make only gentle movements of wheel, etc. to keep sway from starting. Do it long enough, and something beyond your control will eat your lunch.

2) A little extra toungue wt. can save your bacon. Considering the short wheelbase, and notorious stability of the B2, this is about the ONLY thing I had going for me, though The extra leaf on the rear springs, and reciever hitch at correct height probably didn't hurt either.

Epilog:
I was able to catch up to a CO state trooper, pull him over (Kinda neat to do fer a change!) convince him I was not crazy, (Just pumping lots of adriniline) and he caught two kids lobbing football sized chunks of lava-rock (Not as heavy as granite, but still!) at cars on the interstate. They were "shooting" from down in a dry arroyo, so they weren't visible from the road.

When I called to see if they needed me to testify, I was told that the kids had damaged like 50 (I forget the exact number, but it was a LOT of them) vehicles, including three broken windshields. Just luck nobody was killed. The kids were never charged. Don't get me started.

Explorer

04-10-2002, 03:24 PM

My near disaster happened many moons ago... About 15 years. I had a Dodge Dart that I used to bracket race. I finally had bought a trailer for it so I didn't have to drive it 120 miles round trip.

Before I bought the trailer I asked a local shop that built trailers and installed hitches whether or not I could use my Moms Olds Toranado for a tow vehicle. They said no problem.

Well I get a Class IV hitch put on the Olds drive the rig around town a bit and all seems well. First time I get it out on the highway I was going around a curve while heading up hill on a bridge at the same time. All of a sudden the trailer starts whipping back and forth. The thing was whipping so violently that the car was going to extremes of shock travel. The tires of the Olds were just about coming off the ground!

While this was happening my friend who was following in his car trys to keep traffic back by moving from lane to lane behind me! All of a sudden just when I thought the whole thing was going to roll, one of the chains unhooked, the car shifted towards the center of the trailer and one of the slicks dropped into the open center. Barely off the ground... At this point everything stopped swaying. The jolt just evened everything out and I was able to pull off the road. Man.. was I scared sh*tless.

Anyway, we took the car off the trailer and drove it home and NEVER used a front wheel drive vehicle as a tower again... I immediately went out and bought myself a '74 F250 which towed quite nicely :D

BTW, there were no trailer brakes (another mistake) so I couldn't use the brake controller to stop the trailer from whipping.

Explorer

04-10-2002, 03:27 PM

Epilog:
I was able to catch up to a CO state trooper, pull him over (Kinda neat to do fer a change!) convince him I was not crazy, (Just pumping lots of adriniline) and he caught two kids lobbing football sized chunks of lava-rock (Not as heavy as granite, but still!) at cars on the interstate. They were "shooting" from down in a dry arroyo, so they weren't visible from the road.

When I called to see if they needed me to testify, I was told that the kids had damaged like 50 (I forget the exact number, but it was a LOT of them) vehicles, including three broken windshields. Just luck nobody was killed. The kids were never charged. Don't get me started. [/B]

I had a rock thrown at my truck just a mile from my house. Same scenario, kids were in a dry wash chucking big rocks at cars. I got home as quick as I could, hopped on my enduro and tryed to find the kids... unfortunaltly they had alread taken off:mad3:

gunracer1

04-10-2002, 03:53 PM

this was back in 87 i think, a buddie and i head up to east texas to pick up my dads tractor. we have a 16' low boy trailer no brakes. so we load the trailer up with a 7k tractor and another 6k worth of equipment. just slightly overloaded on a 7k trailer. but hell we have a big crew cab chevy dually with a 454. so we take off, blow a tire in 50 miles,drink some more beer and blow another in about 50 miles. now were shit out of luck, in sulpher springs texas on sunday at 8 at night with no spare and two bad rims. get lucky at the only gas station in 50 miles that is open. he has one rim out back and the damn thing fits. put on another tire and haul ass. we have to make up time for the blow outs. so more beer and driving way faster than we should have been, we make the next 200 miles.. go to back it in at my brothers house and the ball snaps in half. got lucky as hell on that one.
the best for me is pulling my fj 62 on a tow dolly behind my 85 4 runner. going nice and easy with the chains hooked up. i thought it felt a little weird. turned the corner in to where i work and i notice this big land cruiser passing the other direction. it ripped the reese style hitch and bumper off the truck. i got lucky it jumped up on a traffic island and stopped. went over to see what the hell happened and there was my bumper and the chains and hitch all hooked up just like i had left them.
the moral of all this is use commone sense and good equipment. i have just been real lucky. mike

yield2me

04-10-2002, 06:18 PM

AWESOME THREAD!!!!

so my question is what , if any, difference does weight distrubuting hitches and sway controlers fit into these situations? I have yet to hear ANY mention of them and towing heavy trail rigs. I do understand how they work (transferring the trailer weight to all axles), but i cant fathom how this makes a 5000 # WC hitch a 10000#!??!! the bolts that hold the reicever to the frame are unchanged, so this cant be the "weak" link.

I guess my point is-i only have a Class IV hitch that is only rated at 6000 # weght carrying, so, does this mean i cant pull my 7000# loaded trailer????

rob

FYRMAN

04-10-2002, 07:03 PM

Originally posted by yield2me
AWESOME THREAD!!!!
I guess my point is-i only have a Class IV hitch that is only rated at 6000 # weght carrying, so, does this mean i cant pull my 7000# loaded trailer????

rob

Example: Truck rated for 5,000 lbs.
Trailer rated for 7,000 lbs.
Hitch rated for 6,000 lbs.

You can only pull 5,000 lbs. You can only pull the lowest posted rating in the combination of hitch/truck/trailer.

FYRMAN

04-10-2002, 07:31 PM

I have never had an incident with a trailer, but working at a trailer dealer, I've seen plenty.

I've seen a brand new, 31 foot, class A motorhome, with both rear corners destoyed by a gal that didn't remember she had a trailer hooked up. She backed out of the driveway and down the street abit. Lesson: always watch your mirrors.

We got a bad batch of tilt deck trailers that had the catch mechanisms fall out when the trailers were going down the freeway. Some newbie welder at the manufacture was only welding on one side of the catch. Up they would go and grind off 3 inches of the dovetail. Lesson: go over your trailer with a fine tooth comb and know what you are pulling. You are responsible for what happens to life and property, unless you can prove without a doubt that it was the manufactures fault.

We had a guy pulling a 3 horse gooseneck trailer with a 2000 PSD flip it on it's side. He was pulling into some stables out of town and he drove the trailer up onto a huge decorative rock. The trailer went up, the hitch didn't break, and it pulled the truck right over with it. Lesson: watch your ass on corners.

Another guy was moving a gooseneck horse trailer 20 feet out of the way of some work he was doing. He wasn't going that far so he didn't bring the jack up all the way. Back he went and tore the whole breastplate out of the trailer when the jack leg caught on a rock. Didn't really hurt it structuraly so he pulled it down to the shop. We had to unhook it with a forklift. Lesson: ALWAYS bring the jack all the way up no matter how far you are pulling the trailer.

My buddy Andre was driving down the freeway with his 10 second Mazda RX7 on the trailer. He had mounted his brake controller right under the little pocket in the dash, and that's where he stuck his cell phone. His phone started ringin and the trailer brakes locked up. It took the trailer and truck and sent them both sideways on a two lane highway. Lesson: Radio RF will set off some brake controllers. Keep all radios at least 12 inches away from your brake controller.

That's all I have now, but I know I have more. I know I will remember later.

white knight

04-10-2002, 07:42 PM

Time where we got a bit nervous was when we were towing yhe rig up a hill. It was a dirt road. We didn't put it in four wheel drive. Big mistake. Front end tires starting spinning. We started sliding backwards. We stalled. Kept trying to start the truck.The trailer started moving crooked backwards. If we picked up momemttum we were dead. Started the truck again and were able to rev and move up just in time. Wasn't the best feeling. We would have benn saying bye bye to the trailer, the rig and the hauler .

payton

04-10-2002, 07:43 PM

Originally posted by Explorer

I had a rock thrown at my truck just a mile from my house. Same scenario, kids were in a dry wash chucking big rocks at cars. I got home as quick as I could, hopped on my enduro and tryed to find the kids... unfortunaltly they had alread taken off:mad3:

I HAD A DUMB LIL SONOFABEZTCH SHOOT MY TRUCK WITH A BB GUN ONCE ABOUT 3 MILES FROM MY HOUSE.. I COULD SEE HIM AND HIS BUDDY TAKE OFF RUNNING FOR THE WOODS..
WELL MY LIL F 250 POWERSTROKE(COMANY TRUCK) HIT THE DITCH AND NEVER SLOWED DOWN AS I WAS CUTTING A HUGE RUT THR HI PARENTS YARD.. JUST SO HAPPEN HIS DAD WAS OUT BACK WHEN HE HEARD TEH COMMOTION OF MY RIG COMING THRU HIS YARD. NEDDLES TO SAY IVE NEVER SEEN A BB GUN BROKE IN TO OVER A KIDS ARSE!!:D THEN THE DAD MADE THE KID WASH MY TRUCK ONCE A WEEK FOR 6 MONTHS.. LMAO..

twn44s

04-10-2002, 07:54 PM

I would worry more about other driver's than anything . I was towing a 23' gooseneck equipment trailer in Sac. a couple of years ago when an elderly lady was at a stop sign , I went by but she did not see the trailer that I was towing , she pulled out and hit the trailer head on catching it on the main frame up front under the deck needless to say her 1997 Chysler went :nuke: . The trailer ran over the front half of the car from the front winshield on, took her radiotor right out of it and pulled both tires off she was ok but it scared the shit out of me and her. The only thing broke on the trailer was a clearence light lense and a few scratchers.

Brutpwr

04-10-2002, 08:47 PM

Ok--here's a few of my good ones... Bought a brand new 82 Yamaha IT 175 so I thought we'd break it in on the Rubicon! Decided to tow the bike trailer in as far as we could go. Well the 1 7/8 ball was binding constantly and you could here the trailer creeking and groaning as we twisted thru the rocks. ...loading up to leave we noticed cracks in the trailer tongue so we chained the thing up and are driving down Ice House when I see my trailer tilt up--I slam on the brakes and the thing hits my truck, I let off and the thing tilts up again! I slam on the brakes again and it slams into me again! Turns out the tongue broke in half--ball and chains were still on the ball but the rest of the trailer was not hooked to the ball! Insurance said if the trailer hit someone else I'd be covered but since it hit my truck it was not (I had full coverage on the truck but none on the trailer!).

Was towing my Camero back from Pismo (my tow rig was down) and I had towed the bikes down with the Camero and blew the HG when I raced a guy not knowing my car was overheating from a blown heater hose. Anyway being lazy I pulled the Car on the trailer backwards and freyed the winch cable when the lowered car hung up on the flowmasters and the frame connectors. Got on the freeway and noticed that the trailer would sway at 65 or so--so we took it easy as the car was already as far up as possible and the winch cable was in to bad a shape to pull the car up again--the engine was hydro locked with water (should have pulled the plugs). Anyway got to San Jose and a 40 foot horse trailer rig was pulling onto the freeway right next to me and was not going to slow so I sped up and tried to pull the next lane (a car was fast approching) my trailer started to fish tail and the truck was swaying (a lowered Toyota 2wd on Yokohama 008R soft compound race tires was the tow rig) was swaying (has big sway bars front and back)--I could see the Camero was leaning and it had springs and sway bars too--also on Yokohama race tires. Truck was leaning and swaying harder than I thought possible (the truck has measured close to 1g cornering unloaded)
but with the trailer pushing the rear side to side it felt like 2g's. Did not want to let go of the 12" Momo wheel (manuel steering)--my brother had both hands on the cage--took one off and pulled the trailer brakes--saved us. We went back later and saw the craziest skid marks you ever saw! I could not have gone that fast thru a slalom without the trailer steering the rear around!

Lets see another one. Bike trailer at Hollister Hills. My bike trailer has a slow leak but I can air it up and drive it an hour or so. I load up to leave and I forget to air up the tire. I'm driving down Cienega Rd and decide to pass a 5th wheel. No problem my trailer is on 255/50-16's Yokohama Race tires (I can pull my buddy's 85 Corvette the handling package on Comp T/A's on the cloverleafs). So my trailer handles--except not when a tire is flat!
The truck is at max cornering speed and I see my trailer off the road at 90 degrees to the truck--I have a long tongue so all is well. The trailer whips to the otherside and the Race rubber hooks and I 360 barrel rool the trailer as its straight behind me. Lots of camping gear and parts/tool boxes break on impact. I'm cleaning/picking up stuff so no one ruins anything when a Ranger pulls up. Some one at the park riding a bike reported a rollover! I tell the ranger that my trailer just fell off the ball. Luckily he did not notice the twisted 360 barrel roll safety chains around the trailer tongue!

My tow rig is down again so my Toyota 2wd is tow rig for my bike and Xcab for a weekend at Clear Creek. We are late and I don't hook up the trailer brake controller from the tow rig. We are heading towards Indian Hill when a truck coming down stops our progress. I clamp on the truck brakes and the trailer which out weighs the truck pull me backwards towards my buddies restored El Camino. I'm honking the horn as I try to keep the rig straight with locked breaks--its not going to work so I let off the brakes the ebrake was already on and so now I can steer but the rear breaks are still skidding. My buddy relieving himself jumps into his running car just in time and throws it into reverse!

Ok--one more thing to check. Were at Pismo looking for a good private spot on a Holiday weekend so the kids can ride/play in safety. There is a steep dune you should not take a car trailer over but I'm commited or stuck... I hit it and I feel the back of the Wagonner pull down hard--felt like the frame broke in half when the Jeep starts up the steep face and the trailer still on the level pile drives into the face of the dune. Anyway we made it on momentum alone (barely). Casualty's are a bent Class 3 hitch and a star crack in the top of the trailer tongue where the 2" ball tried to go thru the top of the tongue! Oh yeah the truck must have bottomed out on the fire wood under the truck as both rock lights were broken and there was a dent on the side of the truck where the generator taged it! We welded the tongue up and reinforced it at the beach--it was worn and was quite thiner than on the sides from all the overloading over the years! Anyway I quickly upgraded to a 12000lb rated 2 5/16 hitch!

Jason :)

Flatty

04-10-2002, 09:06 PM

Got 2 stories
1, Driving down from Truckee to San Francisco after a summer of wheeling and partying up there. I had my old FJ40 with a 4" lift and 33's, 350, Auto, ... towing another cruiser with 2" lift, 350, 4 speed, 31's,... Mine had no top, just a bare bones rig, the one behind me had a hartop, loaded to the gills (I was moving home). Get down around applegate on 80 at about 2am. I am at the last turn oing about 60 mph towing this other cruiser with a tow bar. At the last turn, the cruiser behind me starts to fishtail and then throws me into a full 4 wheel slide down 80. Imagine 2 ruisers flying one right behind the other SIDEWAYS down a 2 lane freeway. I finally come ot rest pointing up the hill with the other cruiser blocking traffic. I had 3 cops PASS me, and did not stop or say a word. The 4th one shut down the freeway s that I coulod turn around. My bro and I park the cruiser in Applegate and decide to come get it the next day with a tow dolly. We come the nest day and throw it on a dolly to take it home. Get right around Vallejo and we hear a loud THOOOOMP. We look back and there is the top doing cartwheels in the air. Lands in the fast lane, and almst kills some cars. We finally get it home and sold the fawker. TAlk about abd luck.

2, We are up at the high laskes at the BAmbi inn. I have my Flatty on the flatbed and we start hauling ass up the road. Dirt gracvel road doing about 70 or so. Got Silly behind me along with some other rigs. All of a sudden my girlfriend is tapping my shoulder pointing at the rig behind me. HALF my truck is offf the trailer!!!!!! We had to tow strap/winch the bastard off the trailer to get it back in one piece. What a bastard.

Dimitri

xextr3m3

04-10-2002, 09:19 PM

dont tow an 80 toy 4x4 on a tow dolly behind a 87 toyota 4x4 with 6 inches of lift and an 18 in drop hitch connected to a shittybuilt bumper that has had the reciever supports cut of

damn near ripped the reciever off the bumper.......so then we hooked it up to my friends samuria:rolleyes: with stock gears and 35's

Aceguy

04-10-2002, 09:25 PM

Got my new (to me) trailer and towed my toy up to bear river resivoir to screw around in the rocks. Going home, I looked in my sideview mirror at just the opportune moment to see my wheel rolling away in the ditch aside the road! Pulled over, seemed that the wheel bearing had siezed and the entire wheel, hub and all, just twisted off of the axle. I had no spare, and no other way to get my rig home, so I towed it at about 20mph for the rest of the way home (it was a double axle, obviously). The morals: check all maintainance on anything that is new to you, grease your wheel bearings frequently, and carry spares!!

RE:Todd

04-10-2002, 09:55 PM

Originally posted by Brutpwr
Ok--here's a few of my good ones... Big snip
Jason :) Let us know when you're towing, I don't want to be near you.

Pavement Pounder83

04-10-2002, 10:11 PM

well MCfly4x4 and i were goin to the rubicon clean up and he was towin his 4 runner with a 1990 ford f250 with a 460in it. well it was all well until the first hill out of sacramento the the trailer brakes stopped workin. they didnt work at all from lets say camron park to his house on the way back. oh yeah driving down the spill way was fun too.

Drew

Dan

04-11-2002, 12:05 AM

Best thread ever on this site! I laughed so hard tears were running down my face and I am never going to tow at 80 MPH any more!

My stories:

I was flat towing my 40 when I got off the freeway to see my drivers side rear tire on the 40 wobbling like mad. Had one lug nut left and the wheel was toast. The end of a 10 hour drive.

Flat towing again heading for Dusy and my Trooper is shaking like crazy. We (10 of us) all stop and look for loose tires or a bad u-joint. Can't find anything so we press on. Getting worse but I figure I can make the trail head and check it out. Well we stop at a store for ice and there is gear oil pouring out from under the 40. The u-joint on the 40 was toast. Shook the rig so violently that it cracked the trans. adapter in two. Every knob on the dash and shifters were on the floor, they all vibrated off!

:blender:

FYRMAN

04-11-2002, 12:12 AM

Told you I would forget one! The runaway wheel reminded me of it.

TORQUE THE LUGNUTS!!!

The easiest thing you can do to save yourself any hassles. Always torque them before each trip. 90-120 ft lbs.

Paul Gagnon

04-11-2002, 12:33 AM

I went to the drag strip with a friend of mine. We were towing his Vega with a borrowed trailer (belonged to someone he knew through work) with a borrowed truck (his father in-law's). We were just a few miles from the track and suddenly the trailer started swerving all over the place. We pulled over and found a flat tire. No problem, we had a spare. Except that one axle had Ford hubs on it and the other axle had Dodge hubs. The spare wheel would only fit one set of hubs and not the other. The spare didn't fit on the hub that had the flat tire. After swapping tires from side to side and axle to axle we were able to get going again.

TEX

04-11-2002, 05:56 AM

Mine are mostly loading/unloading stories. We see a LOT of problems with this at mud races, usually trying to load a truck with muddy tires & a 1,500 RPM idle on an unlevel trailer. You can imagine the rest :D

My own two bone-head moves both involved DRY tires & the tow rig pointing up or downhill. In both cases, stalled the racer out right at the point on the trailer where the racer's engine is at the top of the ramps or just barely on the trailer. This caused the tongue of the trailer to lift up enough on the tow rig that they whole shebang slid downhill. The second incident happened mainly because even though I thought I'd learned my lesson from the 1st incident, I didn't bother to lock the tow rig in 4wd or to set the trailer brakes because it didn't look like much of an incline. $2,400 damage to the tow rig on that one as I slid into a mailbox & jackknifed the trailer :eek:

TEX

elf_cruiser

04-11-2002, 06:48 AM

OKAY, here it is-

The trip: Waco to Moab - May, 2001...
The Trailer: the cheapest, saddest, no brakes, most ragged POS for rent in Waco...
The tow rig: 1986 GMC suburban-454
The towee: 1995 YJ 44/60 - 36's
The support vehicle: 98 TJ 4" superlift-33's

So we get about 50 miles outside of town, and we're getting 6-7 miles/gallon. We have been smelling a burning smell off and on since we left town, but didn't know what it was. Since it wasn't powerful or consistant we just shrugged it off. Then it started to get worse. Our friends were behind us, and came on the radio saying that the trailer was on fire!!! I checked the mirrors and saw some smoke, then i recognized the smell. BURNING RUBBER!! The fender on the trailer was misshapen and was rubbing the inside sidewall of one of the rear tires. I guess this trailer had never had this much weight on it. Well, we pull over, and pull the tire off, luckily it hadn't popped. So we use a rubber mallet to beat the fender straight. Not too much issue...

We go to Moab, break all our sh*t, and start heading back to waco a week later. We decide to go through monument valley since it is only a slight detour. In Arizona we're cruising down the highway, and the trac bar bolt falls out of the front end of the TJ.( i know not trailer related-but c'mon) So after almost rolling the TJ, they get it off to the side of the highway, and we replace the bolt. A couple hours later, we are cruising again, no worries, I am driving the Burb and Trailer, when BAM! a tire blows. Not the same tire that rubbed the fender. The trailer is weaving side-to-side and i slow down and pull off onto the shoulder. We have a spare, but it only has 11psi in it. So we use a 12v compressor my friend bought to inflate his air-mattress... after about 30 mins we are headed back to Waco.

The Lesson: don't rent shady-looking trailers with no brakes... and go prepared to do body work on the side of the highway.

Kevbo

04-11-2002, 09:04 AM

Originally posted by yield2me
so my question is what , if any, difference does weight distrubuting hitches and sway controlers fit into these situations?
Long answer, but you did ask.

The main cross beam on a reciever type hitch is designed to be a rather stiff torsion spring. The cantilivered ball mount causes it to twist from the toungue wt, and from dynamic loads. The hitches rating is based on not twisting it so far as to eventually fatigue the steel, and the farther it get's twisted, the sooner it fails. If you stay within the rating, the hitch should never "wear out".

The spring bars torque the main beam in the opposite direction that toungue wt. does. If they are pulled tight enough, then they can actually preload the beam opposite what the weight is doing.

For example, if the trailer causes the reciever to twist 1 degree under static load, and up to 3 degrees under dynamic loads, Adding spring bars with the correct rating could allow the beam to take the loads within a +/- 1 degree range. This puts much less stress on the material and the welded joints.

The same loading situation DOES apply to the mounting bolts too. Assume the hitch connects to the frame with four bolts. With a wt. bearing setup, the rear bolts carry the full load. The spring bars could transfer the full load the front bolts under static conditions, saving the rear bolts for dynamic loading. They typically don't transfer the full load to the front bolts, but they do allow the front and rear bolts to share the load.

Additionally the spring bars transfer some of the toungue weight to the front of the tug, and to the trailer wheels, actually reducing the wt. load on the ball. This can allow improve handling, as you now have more traction on the steering wheels. If using the spring bars allows you to raise the static toungue wt. of the trailer, then that is an aid to stability as well.

The problem with spring bars, is that they only work correctly on smooth surfaces. If you are towing over much more than a speed bump, then they can't correctly unload the hitch system, and may infact increase the loading in some situations. This is likely to be an issue for off roaders.

Anti-sway friction devices:

Though they can offer some improvement, they should be used to augment correct trailer balancing, not a substitute. (10-15% of total weight on toungue)

They help a great deal when the trailer has a large moment of inertia (in simple terms length x wt) relative to the tug. They especially help with crosswind gusts associated with meeting trucks on a two lane highway. To the driver, it feels more like you are driving say a greyhound bus, rather than an articulated pair. The gust will still knock you sideways a little, but the swerve never starts.

With a long wheelbase tug, and a shorter, lighter trailer, the improvement is not nearly as dramatic, and may not be worth the bother and expense. If the trailer behaves well in gusts, at the speed you care to drive, you don't need one.

Though I am sure the lawyers the manufacturers employ will say otherwise, I have found that they can allow you to tow with safety and confidence at significantly higher speeds..(75 vs. 60 in my case) thus making for a shorter and much less stressful pull. You can arrive at your destination earlier and ready to play, instead of later, and ready for a beer and a nap.

The most severe sway situation is under braking, or downhill situations where the trailer is pushing the tug. If the pair becomes crooked, then the trailer pushes the rear of the tug in a direction the will make the situation worse. This tends to go into a cylic pattern, with each cycle becoming worse than the last, eventually jacknifing the pair when the rear wheels of the tug lose traction.

A fith wheel or goosneck connection eliminates this steering force,
eliminating the conditions for a divergent oscillation. When the connection is over the rear axle, the trailer has no lever to steer the tug with.

The sway control adds friction which tends to keep the pair straight. In addition, as the trailer departs from straight, a torque is applied to the tug that tends to turn it in the direction needed to eliminate the sway. If the trailer does become crooked, then as the trailer is coming back to center, the friction steers the tug such that the trailer rotation slows to a stop as it comes to center. Without the sway control, the rotational speed is maximum as the trailer crosses center, causing it to overshoot in the other direction.

Downsides to sway control:

1) one more thing to hook up.

2) The linkage usually limits the articulation a little. This can lead to binding with a short tug/long trailer combo.

3)It is a fair weather device:
Note that the trailer applies steering forces to the tug through the sway control. These steering forces do NOT depend on the traction of the wheels. If the road surface has low traction, such as snow, ice, or even just rain, then these steering forces can overcome the traction of the wheels causing a loss of control.
For this reason the sway control device should be removed, or adjusted to lower (or zero) friction when driving on a surface with limited traction.

Keith Strong

04-11-2002, 09:11 AM

Just a few weeks ago with a borrowed trailer :(

Toywagon

04-11-2002, 10:21 AM

Going thru colorado in a motorhome, with an mg midget on a towbar. I was 10. Suddenly we hear a tire squeeling like a brake locked up. Dad pulls the motorhome over on the side of the road. All the tires on the motorhome and mg are fine. As soon as he gets back on the pavement, you can hear the tire screeching again. A wheel somewhere is locked up. Back on the shoulder, and he goes around the motorhome, and around the mg. Everything looks good. He has my mom pull the motorhome foward slowly, and all the tires turn. Back in the motorhome, and as soon as we hit pavement, a tire is screeching again!! We pull backover, and he unhooks the tow bar from the motorhome. Off we go down the road, and the screeching is still there, and suddenly BOOM a tire lets go. Dad gets out and checks the 2 inside tires on the back axle, and they are both up. As he comes back to the motorhome, something catches his eye, and he notices that my 10 speed bike that he had bungie corded to the front of the motorhome, had dropped down, and the rear tire was rubbing on the ground, with a blown tire. I can still see my 10 speed go flying thru the air, and landing in abunch of brush. he got back in the motorhome, and as we turned around to go back and get the mg he said he would buy me another bike.

Jim

riffman

04-11-2002, 11:04 AM

thankfully no issues yet towing my rig...but had a scoatch of a problem when me and my dad went fishing one afternoon.

Moral: Tighten Lug Nuts PROPERLY!!!!

We were headed to a lake just south of here, and my dad had just changed the tire on the boat trailer. All is well so far. Then on our way, we hear *THUNK* *SREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH* and look to the left and the trailer tire passes us. Apparently my dad hadn't tightened everything down all the way, and it worked itself off!! DOH! We even ended up losing the tire in a field. Luckily the nuts holding the spare on were the same size, so we got the spare on, and went fishing. Didn't catch shit though......

fj40guy

04-11-2002, 11:17 AM

Tow Bar to bumper: 10mm x 1.5mm NUTS will thread onto a 3/8" x 16 tpi bolt. :eek:

We lost the towed vehicle on I-5 in Oregon heading home to Sacramento. Watched at it passed us going down hill, across the median, across on coming lanes. No traffic at 5 a.m. Breathed a sigh of relief as it seemed to "pause" on a hill across the interstate... only to ROLL OVER a few times, landing on its roof on I-5. :(

I started running an EXTRA safety chains from the vehicle being towed to the towing vehicle. ALL TOWING HARDWARE: Grade 8 FINE pitch after that mixup. :D

Oh, never ASSUME your buddy strapped the rig down on the trailer. We both thought THE OTHER PERSON had strapped it down the night before. No :beer: until strapped down. :D

Tom :usa:

yield2me

04-11-2002, 04:56 PM

:eek: :eek: I have searched the web inside and out, and have asked EVERYONE who i think has an inkling of a clue, and NOONE has explained it like that. I can really understand what you said about the "torsion" like effect of the receiver, and the weight transfer to all 4 bolts, than just mostly the 2 rear ones.

I see the light, i see the light, i see light!!

thanks rob:smokin: :smokin:

DRM

04-11-2002, 05:07 PM

Well I amjust glad to see this thread be so dern popular :p

So anyone wanna help me decide on what kind of electric brake controller to install in my new tow rig? Not looking to break the bank, but not wanting to get cheap stuff either...

FYRMAN

04-11-2002, 06:37 PM

Originally posted by DRM
Well I amjust glad to see this thread be so dern popular :p

So anyone wanna help me decide on what kind of electric brake controller to install in my new tow rig? Not looking to break the bank, but not wanting to get cheap stuff either...

Tekonsha Voyager Not the cheapest, but it is top of the line. Expect to pay about $60-80. Don't let them talk you into installing it. Your truck is wired for it, and you can install it in your driveway (or your new shop :D ) in about 15 minutes. I can give you instructions how in a PM if you want.

The Tekonsha is a pendulum type controller, so the inertia of the vehicle braking will actually control how much juice is headed for the trailer. The only thing that will actually effect the performance of that controller is cigarette smoke. Since you and the wife don't smoke, that should be the last controller you ever have to buy.

EDIT: Since this thread is so popular, and more and more towing questions are popping up in Gen 4x4, anybody else think it's time for a towing section?

yield2me

04-11-2002, 08:03 PM

Yup, i agree, there is so much to towing than most people realize.
like DRM said at the beginning of this post- more and more people are towing now. Probably because all the FAWKERS on boards like this are making the rigs BADDER and BADDER :flipoff2: :flipoff2: :flipoff2:

i for one used to think towing your rig was :rainbow:(since i couldnt afford a tow rig and trailer) , but that cushy ride to the trail and back sure is nice:flipoff2: . esp. since i am in the Army, and the piece of mind that i will be back at formation on monday morning after a trail ride 350 miles away with no pass is hard to beat. hehehehehehe

payton

04-11-2002, 08:22 PM

Originally posted by Brutpwr
Ok--here's a few of my good ones... Bought a brand new 82 Yamaha IT 175 so I thought we'd break it in on the Rubicon! Decided to tow the bike trailer in as far as we could go. Well the 1 7/8 ball was binding constantly and you could here the trailer creeking and groaning as we twisted thru the rocks. ...loading up to leave we noticed cracks in the trailer tongue so we chained the thing up and are driving down Ice House when I see my trailer tilt up--I slam on the brakes and the thing hits my truck, I let off and the thing tilts up again! I slam on the brakes again and it slams into me again! Turns out the tongue broke in half--ball and chains were still on the ball but the rest of the trailer was not hooked to the ball! Insurance said if the trailer hit someone else I'd be covered but since it hit my truck it was not (I had full coverage on the truck but none on the trailer!).

Was towing my Camero back from Pismo (my tow rig was down) and I had towed the bikes down with the Camero and blew the HG when I raced a guy not knowing my car was overheating from a blown heater hose. Anyway being lazy I pulled the Car on the trailer backwards and freyed the winch cable when the lowered car hung up on the flowmasters and the frame connectors. Got on the freeway and noticed that the trailer would sway at 65 or so--so we took it easy as the car was already as far up as possible and the winch cable was in to bad a shape to pull the car up again--the engine was hydro locked with water (should have pulled the plugs). Anyway got to San Jose and a 40 foot horse trailer rig was pulling onto the freeway right next to me and was not going to slow so I sped up and tried to pull the next lane (a car was fast approching) my trailer started to fish tail and the truck was swaying (a lowered Toyota 2wd on Yokohama 008R soft compound race tires was the tow rig) was swaying (has big sway bars front and back)--I could see the Camero was leaning and it had springs and sway bars too--also on Yokohama race tires. Truck was leaning and swaying harder than I thought possible (the truck has measured close to 1g cornering unloaded)
but with the trailer pushing the rear side to side it felt like 2g's. Did not want to let go of the 12" Momo wheel (manuel steering)--my brother had both hands on the cage--took one off and pulled the trailer brakes--saved us. We went back later and saw the craziest skid marks you ever saw! I could not have gone that fast thru a slalom without the trailer steering the rear around!

Lets see another one. Bike trailer at Hollister Hills. My bike trailer has a slow leak but I can air it up and drive it an hour or so. I load up to leave and I forget to air up the tire. I'm driving down Cienega Rd and decide to pass a 5th wheel. No problem my trailer is on 255/50-16's Yokohama Race tires (I can pull my buddy's 85 Corvette the handling package on Comp T/A's on the cloverleafs). So my trailer handles--except not when a tire is flat!
The truck is at max cornering speed and I see my trailer off the road at 90 degrees to the truck--I have a long tongue so all is well. The trailer whips to the otherside and the Race rubber hooks and I 360 barrel rool the trailer as its straight behind me. Lots of camping gear and parts/tool boxes break on impact. I'm cleaning/picking up stuff so no one ruins anything when a Ranger pulls up. Some one at the park riding a bike reported a rollover! I tell the ranger that my trailer just fell off the ball. Luckily he did not notice the twisted 360 barrel roll safety chains around the trailer tongue!

My tow rig is down again so my Toyota 2wd is tow rig for my bike and Xcab for a weekend at Clear Creek. We are late and I don't hook up the trailer brake controller from the tow rig. We are heading towards Indian Hill when a truck coming down stops our progress. I clamp on the truck brakes and the trailer which out weighs the truck pull me backwards towards my buddies restored El Camino. I'm honking the horn as I try to keep the rig straight with locked breaks--its not going to work so I let off the brakes the ebrake was already on and so now I can steer but the rear breaks are still skidding. My buddy relieving himself jumps into his running car just in time and throws it into reverse!

Ok--one more thing to check. Were at Pismo looking for a good private spot on a Holiday weekend so the kids can ride/play in safety. There is a steep dune you should not take a car trailer over but I'm commited or stuck... I hit it and I feel the back of the Wagonner pull down hard--felt like the frame broke in half when the Jeep starts up the steep face and the trailer still on the level pile drives into the face of the dune. Anyway we made it on momentum alone (barely). Casualty's are a bent Class 3 hitch and a star crack in the top of the trailer tongue where the 2" ball tried to go thru the top of the tongue! Oh yeah the truck must have bottomed out on the fire wood under the truck as both rock lights were broken and there was a dent on the side of the truck where the generator taged it! We welded the tongue up and reinforced it at the beach--it was worn and was quite thiner than on the sides from all the overloading over the years! Anyway I quickly upgraded to a 12000lb rated 2 5/16 hitch!

Jason :)

LET USKNOW WHEN UR TOWING SO WE CAN STAY FAR FAR FAR AWAY... LOL

DRM

04-11-2002, 09:11 PM

Originally posted by FYRMAN

Tekonsha Voyager Not the cheapest, but it is top of the line. Expect to pay about $60-80. Don't let them talk you into installing it. Your truck is wired for it, and you can install it in your driveway (or your new shop :D ) in about 15 minutes. I can give you instructions how in a PM if you want.

The Tekonsha is a pendulum type controller, so the inertia of the vehicle braking will actually control how much juice is headed for the trailer. The only thing that will actually effect the performance of that controller is cigarette smoke. Since you and the wife don't smoke, that should be the last controller you ever have to buy.

So does mounting orientation matter? I was thinking on the right hand side of the steering wheel, under the pocket in the dash...
For some reason I see a pendulum mentioned and that comes to mind....

Brutpwr

04-11-2002, 10:35 PM

Ok...brake controllers. In my main tow rig I use a Jordan 2020. It is the only brake controller that varies the voltage to the brakes via the amount the brake pedal is depressed. As there is a direct link to your brake pedal instead of an electric brake light switch that energizes the controler. Most regular brake controllers either give you to little or too much braking 90% of the time. You end up setting them up high on the gain or you risk using rearending someone when you really need them. Also most except the new Tekonsha Prodigy (which is my back up controller)
do not give braking in reverse. I often have to wheel my tow rig to get to that killer camp spot and sometimes you don't make it up that hill! Skidding down an off camber muddy hill with out trailer brakes can ruin your day. I prefer to mount the controller to the center console with velcro. This makes it easy to reach the gain controls and the panic switch without taking your eyes off the road. When you dont need it you can usually velcro it to the side of your console next to the seat or even remove it if you use a flat 4 trailer connector. Using the connector makes it easy to use in other cars or trucks as necessary. Often you can even make a temp connection via your flat 4 trailer connector to a cigarette lighter adapter for when you are in a U-haul or a friends truck. You will not be hooked to the brake pedal but you can use the panic switch to activate the brakes as needed. Many controllers vary their power depending on the outside temperature so these things are not set and forget. Also trailer load is a factor. Also if you have single axle 10" brakes they will fade fast. Do you really think you can stop a 7000lb trailer with a 10" brake? Dual 12" brakes for me is a minimum and I can't wait to get a triple axle trailer for even more piece of mind. If you want to duplicate my "portable" back up set up--use the Tekonsha Prodigy wire in an off toggle and 12V on toggle as there will be times you will want no breaks and others when you may need some extra "parking" brakes and get a digital volt meter or ohmmeter with digital voltage readout so you can easily set braking with out smoke testing your tires.

Jason :)

rockedtj

04-12-2002, 07:01 AM

A friend just sent me this picture.

Suggestion: Use a good quilty hitch pin:flipoff2:

Kevbo

04-12-2002, 07:49 AM

Originally posted by Brutpwr
Ok...brake controllers. In my main tow rig I use a Jordan 2020. It is the only brake controller that varies the voltage to the brakes via the amount the brake pedal is depressed

Nope, not the only one, and certainly not the first.

If the vehicle does not have ABS, or has Ford's RWABS, then a hydraulic linked controller is a cheaper alternative, that works similarly. You run a brake line to the controller, and it applies the trailer brakes in proportion to the hydraulic pressure.

A lot of people here are likely to be towing with older if not ancient rigs, and many of these would be good candidates.

These offer a useful feature in that the driver can instantly manually over-ride the hydraulic actuation, increasing OR DECREASING the trailer braking any desired amount on a given stop. The hydralic cylinder actually operates the thumb lever, so you can assist or fight it.

AFAIK no other type of controller allows this....Though all allow the trailer brakes to be applied without using the tug brakes. (handy for stopping a sway)

Another feature is that they are normally wired to drive the brake light line when the trailer brakes are applied, rather than just sensing it as electronic controllers do. I use this feature on tailgaters a lot when I am not towing.

I think Kelsey has ceased production, but Tekonsha still makes them AFAIK...and you may be able to find one on a dealers shelf for cheap, as they are not real popular.

They are stupid simple, with almost nothing to fail. Install a breaker to protect against a short in the brake system, and they should last nearly forever. Also, they are completely immune to RFI issue mentioned above...though that is the first time I ever heard of that one.

Dealers don't like to install them, as the brakes must be bled after the install, and that isn't always easy. Also they are not compatable with ABS, so rich folks that want to pay someone for installing it probably can't use one anyway.

Everytime I have mentioned this, some old fart will pop up and say something like "Yeah, those things worked great...wish I could use one with my new truck!"

Butch

04-12-2002, 11:16 AM

Coming back from EJS 2001 and a CME(Colorado Mountain Express) van is being a dickhead and will not let this pickup 2 cars in front of me by. Pickup gets in slow lane to try and pass, van speeds up to catch next car slows down again. This has been going on for about 6 miles. Just before Frisco the pickup is on the vans ass when he slams on his brakes. Pickup locks up and is sliding sideways on interstate. Honda in front of me hits her brakes hard while I am busy shitting my pants and cranking the brake controller all the way up. Car passes on the right so I jump over into the slow lane. Pickup lets off brakes and shoots across in front of me and off the exit as I pass by the van he goes to get in the slow lane. Problem is my trailer is there. He bodyslams my trailer at 70+. It KO's his passenger side of this 15 passenger van. His mirror puts a dent in the fender of my K-5 that is on the trailer. Rips my fender almost off the trailer, bends the rear axle and blows the left rear tire. It goes to fish tailing pretty bad and I am on the trailer brakes and the throttle and get it straightened out and pull over. After my heart started to beat again thankfully the State Patrol had shown up cause I then wanted to kill the little PUNK that was driving the van. By the time I got a new tire to limp home on it was snowing at Eisenhower tunnel and took me 3hrs to make a 1-1/2 trip the rest of the way home. Those ski van drivers should not be allowed on the road.:mad: :mad:

FYRMAN

04-12-2002, 02:00 PM

Originally posted by Brutpwr
Also most except the new Tekonsha Prodigy (which is my back up controller)
do not give braking in reverse. Jason :)

Bullchit. Even the Voyager has braking in reverse, and squeezing the manual button gives you all the voltage you have the controller set for. I back trailers into my shop area all day long and can tell you for a fact that they work in reverse. the old POS Kelsey-Hayes, the Reese Brakeman Compact (the kind you find at Wal-Mart), the old "Comander" controllers you see in grandpa's rig, and the Tekonsha all work in reverse. If you don't believe me, come look at the big divets in the gravel from where the trailer brakes lock up and push the tires.

DRM... The indentation in the dash, just below that pocket, is where I mount 99% of the brake controllers I install in Super Duty trucks. Angle does matter, but having it in that spot is fine. Don't listen to anybody that says being on a hill will affect it. It won't affect it enough to not give you brakes.

rokryder

04-12-2002, 02:00 PM

Jake (Bigwilly) was towing his flatty with a towbar and it was icy as hell and the jeep slid into the mountainside/ditch on the side of the road. He tried to gas it out and trashed the bed of his nice dodge 2500. we had to talk him out of leaving the jeep in the ditch.

dirtrod

04-12-2002, 07:25 PM

2 years ago on the return trip from tellico, we were blasting thru cincinatti about 70 mph in the fast lane (next to the concrete wall), towing the jeep on my trailer. (I had been on a 3 month, no sleep type binge converting from leaf springs to coilovers, and reworking everything else)...anyway, I'm crusing along arguing with the warden about how fast I'm driving, and all of the sudden the tires on semi trailer next to me start smoking and skidding, I look up and see nothing but stopped cars...Fawk ! I put both feet on the brake pedal and started a nice full panic slide. I can't go to the right because of the semi, can't go left because of the wall, so I go into the stopped miata doing about 50 mph, boom ! , now the lane to my right is clear so I switch lanes, the miata hits a saturn and knocks it into my new lane, boom ! Damn !...Anyhow these two cars are totaled and I got a bent bumper and a broke headlight . : )
I had the wrecker pull the bumper away from the tire, get my ticket and we drive home (6 hrs) with 1 headlight and 8" flat spots on all 4 tires.

sfazr2

04-12-2002, 07:46 PM

was flat towing my '50 p/u with a tow bar and went into a parking lot that had quite a dip at the entrance. Broke the mounts for one side of the tow bar. Theres no bumper on the truck, the mounts were welded to the frame. To boot, I"m moving, both trucks are loaded to the gills and I'm in a city were I don't know anyone, but luckily I've got one friend with me.

It's raining, cold and we can't move the old truck because theres no steering wheel in it. we're in a KFC parking lot in the middle of were people are supposed to drive. I unload the back of the old truck to access tools, welder, and extension cord. My buddy runs the extension cord into KFC for power. 4 hours later I've totally redone the whole setup. Luckily there was a hardware store accross the street for nuts and bolts. Fortunatly there was some leftover square stock in the back of the truck.

And the manager at KFC gave us a free meal :D

ForestCam

04-12-2002, 09:50 PM

Just read a post over in chit chat that reminded me of another story. Not really a trailer towing story but it involves a trailer none the less.

'Bout 6 years ago the guy I worked with and I go to the local equipment rental yard to pick up a chipper for work. The yard guy, who I will refer to as DUMBASS from now on, was trying to show us how it worked, we already knew and knew more about it then he did so we just smiled and tried not to laugh at him. Out of the corner of my eye I notice this double axle lowboy rolling across the yard twards us.
This DUMBASS grabs the pentel and tries to stop it. Well it stopped alright, when the ring (he was hanging on to) hits the counterweight on a Bobcat!
We're just standing there with our mouths hanging open as DUMBASS grabs his hand, blood squirting everywhere, and runs into the shop.
I look over at my buddy and say "You'd better go look and see if there's any fingers under the tounge of that trailer 'cause if I do and there are I'll probably pass out."
Unbelieveable this DUMBASS didn't loose a single finger only broke one!:rolleyes:

Highlander

04-12-2002, 10:46 PM

So i borrow the 1 ton plus rig with huge " glass racks " from the co. I work for and pick up a trailer and backhoe from the rental yard. The ride to the property was interesting as the road is so tight with switchbacks that the trailer wheels are over the edge many times!
So after we do the backhoe job , we decide to go down the other side of the mountain as the 6 mile dirt road coming in was a pain in tha ass.
Only a short three mile down hill on a unmaintained dirt road. Get to the part were it 100 yards long on a 45 degree plus angle , and the weight of the backhoe is pushing the truck downhill with the truck brakes locked up.:eek:
Get it to stop and decided to unload the hoe and drive it down, so we throw some boulders under the truck rear wheels as chocks , just in case!
As we back the hoe off the trailer , the weight of only the front wheels of the hoe left on the trailer , the weight tranfer to the rear of the trailer picks up the hitch and the rear wheels of the truck about 1 1/2 feet off the ground , clear over the " chocks " and the rig starts going downhill pretty friggin fast.My buddy's on the hoe is goin for a ride with the rear hoe tires locked up and draggin!
Never knew I could run that friggin fast , open the door ( which aint easy on a fast movin vehicle ) and got the bastard to stop on the edge of the cliff , with the trailer / hoe at maximum jacknife point before body damage:eek:
Yeah , I was a rookie at that point in life, with some pretty soiled underwear!!!

:D :D

evilfij

04-12-2002, 11:19 PM

This is why I need a PSD and a two truck trailer!

The worst I had was when the tow rig 96 land rover discovery(which my wife wheels) popped a brake line.

Had to drive the 59 land rover back 5 hours in freezing temps. No seals, 2 pump brakes, 3 pump clutch, no heater or defroster, and no wipers.

It was interesting as neither one of us could stop.

Lesson, don't wheel the tow rig :)

Ron

aksut

04-13-2002, 09:24 AM

From north of Fairbanks Alaska to Kenai peninsula, tandom axle snowmachine trailer 19 flat tires, found out they put crushed rocks for sand on the icy roads its like small arrow heads got pretty good at plugin tires 12 to 14 hr trip took about 40, the next trip heavy duty steel belted tires on trailer

Grim Reaper

04-13-2002, 11:20 AM

Originally posted by Todd
Bronco II with a bumper hitch, 5X8 U-haul enclosed trailer. The hitch angle was probably 30 degrees up from horizontal, I didn't know any better, U-haul said it was fine. Accelerated up to highway speed coming down an on-ramp. The trailer started fishtailing, I got off the gas. Kept fishtailing, spun the whole rig around, trailer flipped onto it's roof, pulling the ball through the bumper. Broke a couple of items of furniture in the trailer. Learned never to trust the U-haul dudes./

You did the wrong thing. When a trailer is fishtailing the worst thing to do is slam on the brakes. It unloads the the rear wheels of the tow vehicle and the trailer will spin you out for sure since it's pushing. The right thing to do is give it gas to pull the trailer back in line and make the rear of the tow vehicle squat. Other alterantive is to let off the gas slow. No sudden weight transfers.

Ok my trailer towing story. It was a 5x8 utility trailer that I have converted into a enclosed trailer. I85 north bound. Helping out my sister by moving her junk. I was pulling it with my lifted 75 K5. The trailer is a tilt bed. I was very carefull to load it tounge heavy. Had about 150lb of tounge weight. Because my truck is lifted the tounge was a little above level, not a lot but some. My 75 is my trail rig. Rear suspension was real soft. I'm running about 70mph...about all the truck will go. come around the sweeping right turn. Nothing tight...could have gone through it at 150mph in my supra. it was light down hill over a small bridge then up hill in this turn. all is going fine till I hit that bridge. it had a slight wave in the pavement right before it. The trailer didn't like it and bucked. This started cycling the soft suspension on the truck. That tipped the CG on the trail back and it started fish tailing.
I do what your supose to...I floor it...problem is the truck is topped out. I start getting out fo the gas and it just gets worse. At one point I look in my rear veiw to see the trailer not only going sideways it's up on one wheel. It catches launches in the air and comes down on the other wheel and bent the trailer frame.
NONE of the right things to do worked. I'm still going 60mph and the trailer is getting more out of shape. I finaly came to the decision I just wanted to loose as much speed as possible before the roll over happend. I hit the brakes hard. I got lucky....REAL lucky. At the point I hit the brakes ther trailer was pitching forward and loading the rear suspension of the truck. when I locked up the brakes. The trailer stayed in line with the truck and I got it stopped rubber side down.
I went back and looked at the skid marks on the street (not the ones in my drawers from prying the seat cover out of my ass) after chain smoking about 5 cigs in about 3 minutes. My spare tire for the trailer is mounted on the tounge of the trailer. Normaly it is a good 12 inches off the ground. I was getting so much weight transfer from the trailer that the spare hit the ground 3 times! The last time it hit the ground was about 2 feet before the marks where I finaly said the hell with it and loocked up the brakes.
There was two points where the the skid marks show the trailer going side ways then they just end. I think the trailer was airborn and skipping at those points.

fireaustin

04-13-2002, 03:27 PM

Did a hot shot to the Northeast corner of Texas to buy a dozer and bring it back to the Austin area in my old Chevy 2500. We got out there with no problems and loaded the dozer on the trailer. Coming back, about 1 hour out of town a tire blows. No big deal, the next town was only 15-20 miles away and the trailer was a tandem dual, so we just took it easy. Got a new tire put on and headed out. When we got about 15 miles from home, it is dark and just as I exit the freeway (was going around 75-80 mph) and start slowing to around 40 mph, I hear and feel a huge THUNK. :nuke: I look at my buddy in the passenger seat just in time to see 2 tires passing me. All 8 lugs broke off the axle. After some standing around, scratching our heads, we moved the dozer to the far front-left of the trailer and used a little redneck ingenuity to get the axle off the ground. Moving the dozer caused the leaf springs to bottom out on the rubber stoppers. The last 15 miles of the trip took over an hour.

SuperJ

04-13-2002, 06:25 PM

This happened about 5 years ago in Montana. I was part of a three vehicle convoy headed back to Minnesota from a great snowmobiling trip. The vehicles were: a new Expedition pulling a 12 foot homemade enclosed trailer full of tools luggage etc, my best friend Matt's Banks equipped Cummins powered Ram pulling his 24 foot Haulmark full of sleds, and my IH4700 crewcab sporttruck pulling a 32 Featherlite fifth wheel full of sleds. The entire trip Matt has been leading the way and bragging on his Ram. He had gone so far as to "block me" on one grade where I knew it was coming and he didn't. He had also been harassing the women about being so slow to take care of "business", and falling behind on fuel stops. We pull into this truck stop about 9:30 pm we fuel all the trucks and head for the restrooms and the soda coolers. The women having grown tired of Matt's antics decide to teach him a lesson so Matt's sister-in-law Jenny stays outside and proceeds to swipe all of Matts CDs and replace them with her Yanni, Barbara Streisand, Neil Diamond and the like. She also locks his keys in his truck(she says by accident to this day). So the rest of the wives come piling out of the store in a rush and start giggling amongst themselves and get in the Expedition.
Matt comes out finds his truck locked with the keys in the ignition and starts having a fit. The women see this and head for the freeway onramp. We calm him down and go into his trailer to get the spare set he keeps in the storage compartment on his sled. We get his truck open and start out ourselves. He immediately starts hollering at the women on the CB like a big baby about who locked my truck. His own wife finally answers him and tells him to knock it off. So the women are now about 5 miles ahead of us because we can barely hear them on the CB. Matt is right in front of me at this point we are running about 78-80 mph. Next thing I know He is on the radio going wild again because he has found out his discs have been swapped. The women are ignoring his demands over the CB to know who took his cds so he says to me that he is going to go catch them and get his discs back. He starts pulling away from me at a pretty good rate that had to be close to 100 mph. He is about a 2 miles ahead of me when I see his clearance lights flicker and then go out. I get on the CB to tell him about it but he doesn't answer. As I get closer I can see the back of his trailer and it looks like he has just pulled off on to the shoulder. As I pull up the guys are all out his truck already so I get out to see what is going on. His lower right front corner is all tore up the radiator is broken and the entire electrical system is stone dead. Matt is wandering around in shock saying "I must have hit a deer". The thing is I don't see any blood and the deer must have been about two feet tall. His passengers are going on about how they hit more than one and maybe it was coyotes. I get down on my knees with a light and look under the truck and I see a bunch of red tubing wedged between the crossmember and road then it hits me he has hit a portable pump or generator or welder. I stand up chuckling and then it really hits me. I drop back down and look again and I realize Matt has hit the spare mitsubishi generator we brought along that is supposed to be in the back of the trailer the women are pulling with the Expedition. I send some of the guys back towards my truck to check the shoulder and ditch. I run back to my rig to raise the women on the CB but get no response. I am thinking they must be out of range already. The guys find Matt has hit not only the spare generator but our 40 quart metal cooler full of barley pop and some of our luggage. We quickly decide that the back door on the trailer must have come open spilling our stuff on the highway. We decide we need to get close enough to the women so they can here us on the CB since we have all the cell phones that have service here with us. I jump into the Intersmashable with two other guys and we takeoff. We have gone about 4 miles in the left lane passing scattered stuff from our trailer in the right. I am running right on the governor at 84 mph when we crest a little rise and see the women off in the distance on the shoulder. I am silently thanking the Lord thinking they must have realized what has happened and stopped but as I get a little closer they pull back out into the right lane. I grab the radio but they still don't answer, I found out later they got tired of listening to Matt and turned it off. I am flashing my lights, swerving, everything I can think of to get them to stop all to no avail. As we get close enough for my lights to illuminate the back of the trailer we can see the door is still up. We are baffled as to how the stuff fell out when we see a suitcase fall out from underneath the trailer. The trailer floor has failed in some way! I am just starting to move up thinking maybe I can get along side of them when they swerve in front of us!! I swerve into the other lane because I don't want to hit anything that might fall out of the trailer. Then they swerve back in front of us One my passengers says "Fuck they think we're Matt trying to get his discs back or at least lead and they ain't going to let us pass". Knowing he is right I back off 100 yards to think about how to get them to stop. All the while they are losing everything in the trailer. They can't see us directly out of the Expedition because their trailer is too big so they are just watching us in their mirrors proably seeing nothing but our headlights. So I turn off my headlights hoping my wife at least will recognize the IH parking lights and have them stop. So here I am running about 80 mph down the freeway with my lights off while all of our luggage is being scattered on the road to be run over and destroy or be destroyed by whover comes along. Just when we are getting desperate the CB crackles to life and Matt's wife says "knock it off you moron, turn on your lights". I scream back "this isn't Matt pull over now your trailer is falling apart" so Jenny dynamites the brakes I whiz by in the left lane. I am braking as hard as I dare watching my mirror as she swerves onto the shoulder that still has snow on it. She is going too fast though and the trailer tires lockup. So of course the trailer jacknifes in to the truck before coming to a stop. When I get back to them and open the trailer I find that the entire last 4x8 section of floor is completely gone along with most of the contents. There is no exit for miles. The median is too full of snow to drive through with the IH. So the women who are all weepy by now jump out and get in the IH to wait while we guys go back in the Expedition to see what we can do. We blast through a median crossover with about a 30 Mile an hour run at it and start pounding back to the other way with the Expedition indicating 105 or so. We only go about 5 miles when we see it headlights on the shoulder pointed all crazy, damn somebody else must have crashed into some of our stuff. As we close the distance the lights start moving and we realize it is couple of our guys on sleds grabbing our stuff and throwing it on the shoulder so nobody hits it! In the end it turned out the trailers mild steel crossbracing had almost completely dissolved but looked okay because of the undercoating. We removed the plates and abandoned it at a truck stop. The Ram came all the way home on the back of a tow truck and my IH now has very distinctive tow truck type strobe parking lights.

FYRMAN

04-13-2002, 07:46 PM

Originally posted by SuperJ
This happened about 5 years ago in Montana. I was part of a three vehicle convoy headed back to Minnesota from a great snowmobiling trip. The

:eek: You win...

Got another trailer in to work today... Another one of those "I thought you hooked the trailer up" stories.

They had a 68 Camaro in an enclosed Haulmark trailer. They had backed up and got lined in to hook up. One guy leaves to get a beer, the other guy follows shortly after. One of the kids (5 years old) remembers how to hook up the lights like dad showed him, so he plugs it in. The guys come back from thier beer and jump in the truck. Dad spent the money on the Tekonsha controller, so he looks for the green light on the controller to see if it's connected. Green light, so he thinks the trailer is ready to go.

He walked into the shop and handed me the 3 yards of the trailer cord he pulled completly out of the loom. Talk about a birds nest. Some of the wires were pulled out of the insulation. Just bare wire hanging out of the loom. I don't have to restring the whole thing, but I may as well.

The wiring runs down the frame on the passenger side, up the pillar on the rear corner, then it splits off and runs down both sides all the way to the front. The wires were even pulled tight up in front of the trailer! This is gonna be a mess.

FYRMAN

04-13-2002, 09:52 PM

Good trailer info links:

Tekonsha (http://www.tekonsha.com)
Wiring and brake controllers.

Hoppy wiring products (http://www.trailerwiring.com)
Everything you need to start towing but the trailer.

Turnover ball gooseneck hitches (http://www.turnoverball.com)
Custom flatbeds and attachments also.

Hidden Hitch (http://www.hiddenhitch.com)
Bumper pull hitches. They also have a good list of towing laws.

payton

04-13-2002, 09:54 PM

heres another funny one for u guys.. im a operating engneer. site supervisor for a large construction company here in indiana a few years back after first starting with the company. i was running as a escort vehicle on a rainny day we were head to ft wayne indiana about a 4 hour drive any way going around interstate 465 (the big loop around indy) im following lights flashing cauyse were carring a d-8 high track with blade.. which takes specail permits.. well d.o.t. department of transportaion is always on our ass.. so any way im chattin withe the driver on the cb. when i see him lock it up .. some one had cut him off and he locked it up from running over them.. any way the low bow starts sliding and the dozer is swaying back and forth.. next thing i know the chains start snapping pieces of metal are hittin my truck.. and the dozer is slidding down the free way with one track on the trailer and the other one on the pavement.. the dozer finally comes all the way off andthe low boy is about 5oo to 750 feet up the road stopped .. the dozer is sitting on the side of the interstate.. i yell at the driver drop ur deck here i come..
so i climb up in the dozer and start tracking as fast a a dozer will.. not very fast totell the truth.. any way i wasnt watching behind be cause no more then i got moving dot is on my ass lights on..
company got a nice large fine on that day.. plus we ended up replacing some payment.! at out own cost!

Brutpwr

04-14-2002, 02:09 AM

Two more trailer stories that we often remember at the campfire...

Normal tow rig down again so I'm towing a Toyota 4wd Extra Cab with Quad and my bike with my trusty lowered Autocross Truck. My hood latch is broken so I have the hood tied down with a bungee cord. Well I guess some sharp metal cut it and my hood flys open just as I'm getting excited as I can see the lights to the south of vehicles on the beach (Pismo southbound on 101). It flys open bends back and almost hits the windshield scares the heck out of me as I can't see around it--I nail the brakes and all for Yokohama race rubber goes up in smoke. I forgot to reset the trailer brakes as I had them on a low setting as I come down the grade at only 30 MPH or all the brakes on the trailer fade after my rotors on the truck get warped and I have to let off the brakes or the steering wheel will get jerked out of my hands! Get the truck over on the shoulder and put a ratchet tie down securly on the hood! I get to Pismo and my buddies ask me about my destroyed louvered hood and cowl all bent up. I tell them I had a mishap...

Story two...
So my buddy has an Aunt whom can accurately see into the future. She tells us that she sees my best friend upside down hanging by his seat belts on one of our "infamous" trips. So I'm getting my new 6000lb axles with 12" brakes bolted in place of the 3500lb 10" brakes the mourning before we start out. This on top of taking my Truck on its maiden trip after having been parked for 4 years! So we are heading east on I-10 out of LA going to Glamis when I don't see my buddy behind me. Turns out both my U bolts for one of my axles fell off in front of him and one landed on his hood! The other one is dancing from lane to lane as rush hour traffic is hitting it. And my buddy is chasing it on the freeway on foot! I slow down thinking about what is Aunt told us before we left. Kevins no where to be seen so I decide to pull off at the next exit and doulble back. As I pull off I see him on the highway just as I'm about to turn left and pull under the freeway to go back. So I get on the onramp and jump the curb before the entrance to pull up beside where he's waiting and he says do I need these (shows me my gold painted U-Bolts). Turns out they are both off the front axle on the left side! Only thing I can figure is the spring was not in the hole fully when I impacted them on!
So we get them back on--the one that got run over a bunch of times needed some work with the thread file! I pull out into traffic but my friend does not merge (I have 450HP and he has like 250HP) so I slow and he never catches up for like 20 minutes. I take an exit to doulble back but its a freeway with no return loop so now I'm not even on the right freeway! I take a chance and floor it through a muddy median fully knowing that my front axle gears are blown from the last Pismo trip (four years ago). I doulble back and run out of gas so I put the race fuel for the bikes in and go! Can't remember the exit we were fixing the axle on and end up going to far. I now east bound on I-10 again
but its dark so I pull off to see where I'm at on the GPS (hoping it will show where I exited the first time). Of course a Highway Patrol pulls up and notices expired tags on the trailer (but I have them in the glove box). I like a dummy ask if anyone in a white Blazer has been in an accident or rollover cause thats what I'm thinking. He askes what I'm doing with the GPS (he did not know what it was) as the year was like 1995. So I continue along to Glamis still some 5 hrs away. My truck stops running on a long bridge with no turnout--so I have the flashers on both my truck/trailer and the Toy on the trailer so a semi does not plow me. I call the Highway patrol from a call box and request a Tow truck and ask again if there are any accidents reported. I go back to my truck climb under the hood and see my distributor wire broken. So I fix it and am moving again. I call my buddies parents to see if he's called in and he has not--now they are worried too! I get to Glamis and wait where we always camp both 50 watt flag lights setting up a nice glow and set up camp.
Here my buddy hit the air horns--he's ok. Turns out when he went to get back on the freeway he got high centered on the trailer ubolts on the curb with his truck already out in the #1 lane. He had to dig stuff out just to get to his high lift jack! Plus he stopped for groceries which I had not. He had seen me pass him as they walked into the grocery!

Jason :)

Brutpwr

04-14-2002, 02:14 AM

Oh yeah the Aunt's prediction of my Buddy being involved in a rollover accident in story two above came true on the following trip at Hollister Hills when he rolled his sand/dirt buggy!

Jason :)

85TrailToy

04-14-2002, 06:14 AM

Thought I had a decent one... then I read that 3-rig snowmobile trip!:eek: :eek:

The trip: (not mine)
3 guys, 4 motorcycles, 1 borrowed trailer, and 1 Ford Expidition off for a weekend of racing in PA. Brad had his new race bike, which he hadn't even ridden yet, and his street bike. At some point something happened to the trailer, I'm guessing it started fishtailing. They ended up in a ditch with the trailer on top of the bikes and the Expidition upside down on the trailer. Everything totaled except one bike. And 3 were race bikes so no insurance. Luckily nobody hurt except for a few bruises.

Thumper046

04-14-2002, 12:20 PM

I think this happened about 3 to 4 years ago. One of my buddy’s POS Isuzu PU broke down at his girl friends house. Being a nice guy, I grab our shops POS 8x12 single axle flat bed trailer and head out to go get his truck and bring back to our shop. The problems did not start till we got out to where the POS was. We get out there and set up to load his truck, Well the dumbass had lost his Keys..... and the freaking steering is locked with the tires turned a bit. Make it worse there is no way to load the truck now nose first.

Against out better judgment, Bill and I decide to go through with loading this dam thing backwards and slightly sliding the trucks nose a bit at a time to try and get it as straight as possible. Well after about 40 minutes of fighting this thing it loaded. We strap it down and head out. We stopped about every 7 miles or so just to make sure the freaking thing stayed in place. That made out 30 mile trip seem allot longer then necessary, but hey we seen a friend in need and thought we could help. Plus he was the manger of a local pizza place and offered to pay us back by supplying the shop that night with pizza and beer. Cant so no to free pizza and beer!!!!!!!!
We where making the trip pretty good and with out any problems at this time. My 91 Blazer(god I miss it) is towing this screwed up set-up pretty good. Well we make it to the home stretch to the shop when we here a very load 'POP' (hmmmmmmmm)

First thought was something broke, that thought was laid to rest when the trailer tongue tagged my rear tailgate. Instantly we knew the damm thing some how worked its way off the ball....... I prayed the tongue of the trailer would drop a bit and hit my bumper...........No luck there trailer hit my beautiful black Blazer 3 more times till it settles enough I can drag it to the edge of the road and stop it. Bill and I hop out and surveyed the damage. All in all not as bad as it could have been. One nice slash mark through the tailgate, like some one hit it with a axe and three dents. Needless to say I beat the hell out of my friends POS Isuzu for it and then re-hooked up the trailer and dumped it off at the shop. First towing accident I had but not the worst. My shop did manage to get free pizza and beer for 3 months. I learned to never ever freaking tow anything backwards. Also make sure your Insurance will cover $500 damage. I always seem to learn these things the hard way!!!!!!!

DMG

04-14-2002, 05:03 PM

Superj, your story wins!
My worst towing disaster happened recently with a borrowed 24 valve cummins (awesome truck) and a uhaul trailer. we used it to pick up a 4runner in DC. On the way we stopped to eat and somehow wound up in a parking garage. We argued about whether I could get the truck and trailer out through the spiral ramp and somehow I was talked into trying. About a 3rd of the way up the trailer stopped us with the left side against the inside wall and the right rear corner against the outer wall. At this point all that was left to do was try to rip the trailer out and be glad I spent the extra 10 bucks for insurance. It came right out with no serious damage to the truck but the wall was pretty gouged up.
That truck pulled the 5-6k trailer with the cruise on through the hills on 79 and 68 like it was nothing btw.
DMG

RE:Todd

04-14-2002, 06:06 PM

Originally posted by Grim Reaper

You did the wrong thing. When a trailer is fishtailing the worst thing to do is slam on the brakes. It unloads the the rear wheels of the tow vehicle and the trailer will spin you out for sure since it's pushing. The right thing to do is give it gas to pull the trailer back in line and make the rear of the tow vehicle squat. Other alterantive is to let off the gas slow. No sudden weight transfers.

Reaper, I gotta pull a DRM. I didn't say I slammed the brakes!! I got off the gas, knowing that I need to gradually slow to change the momentum :D:D:D:D.

Grim Reaper

04-14-2002, 09:56 PM

Originally posted by Todd
Reaper, I gotta pull a DRM. I didn't say I slammed the brakes!! I got off the gas, knowing that I need to gradually slow to change the momentum :D:D:D:D.
Doohhhh....Sorry. Went back and read it again...yeah you said "Got off the gas".

lt1yj

04-14-2002, 10:55 PM

Towing an empty 18' flatbed down the toll road in Chicago right at dusk. I'm pulling into the toll booth when the guy on my left decides he doesn't have exact change so he darts over into my lane not realizing I'm pulling a trailer. He ends up hitting both tires on the left side, mangled the fender and ripped off the lights. I had welded a bar on to hold the lights in place and it ripped a big gash in the front fender of his Buick along with some pretty good scratches and dings on the doors from the tires and fender.

I paid the toll and pulled to the side to exchange info and the guy takes off! I got his license number and called the cops. Turn out he was in his mid 80's and had several accidents in the few months before and thought he was going to lose his license.

Had another one when I was just 19. Making a left hand turn on the downhill side of a semi blind hill, ok if you're doing the speed limit and paying attention. Guy was going about 70 and couldn't slow down fast enough and rear ended me as I was half way through the turn. The truck I was in was on 2 wheels and I thought is was going over but luckily it came back down on all four. The tongue of the trailer was touching the diff cover when I got out to look at it. Managed to drive it the 3 miles home and used the gas axe to uncouple it. The guy had just picked up the truck at the dealer and was playing with the stereo and didn't see me until the last minute. Totalled both trucks.

SHERPA

04-15-2002, 07:18 AM

I have a few stories....

1) Borrowed 3-axle homemaid flat-bed trailer.... This thing
probably weighed 5-6 thousand pounds..empty.. I think the
family I borrowed it from used it to move their D-6 Cat farm
crawler....... I used to to haul my 72 chevy blazer tub out to
Butte College to work on... No problems hauling it out there.
I was towing with my 62 chevy 1/2 ton pickup.... (weighed
alot less than the trailer did) When I drove back home, only
going around 50 mph, the trailer started fishtailing madly
behind me on hiway 99... I ended up saving it by just slowing
down, but I also managed to re-arrange a few of those huge
bushes in the median just before the East 1 ave exit in Chico........

2) Not as exciting as #1, but using a rented tow dolly, towing
a 56 Ford pickup from Sac to San Jose, I had made a fairly
tight turn at a fast-food joint on hiway 5..... Got back on the
freeway, and just checking behind me, noticed a bit of smoke
coming off the left-tire on the tow dolly.... pulled over and
stopped to check it out.... Seems the running boards on my
Ford f-100 pushed the cheapo fenders into the tires on the tow
dolly..... had to beat the bracket back away from the tire to
continue on....

Oh yeah, don't ever tell the rental places you plan on taking their
trailers to XX destination (if it's more than say 30 miles from
where you're renting it from) cause they have rules about
their junk not to be towed more than about 50 miles total.....

Live and learn.....

oh yeah, one more.... towing an f-250 hd diesel x-cab 4x4
with another f-250 hd diesel x-cab 4x4 takes aloooooong
time, and you can only drive about 45 mph before it starts
to dance behind you............

Oh yeah, 2 more... both the same... I bought 2 International
Loadstar trucks from my brother in Chico.... I flat-towed both
of them to San Jose with a towbar..... You can only drive about
45 mph doing this.... any more and you will be all over the road..
And I had lots of CHP go right by me... Of course I did all this
at 1:00am, to avoid traffic and the CHP.......
--Sherpa

84 Sheepdog

04-15-2002, 03:05 PM

Manure spreader jack-knifed on the santa ana. Most god-awful smell. You should see my shoes. Woo-wee!

84 Sheepdog

04-15-2002, 03:07 PM

Originally posted by elf_cruiser
OKAY, here it is-

The trip: Waco to Moab - May, 2001...
The Trailer: the cheapest, saddest, no brakes, most ragged POS for rent in Waco...
The tow rig: 1986 GMC suburban-454
The towee: 1995 YJ 44/60 - 36's
The support vehicle: 98 TJ 4" superlift-33's

So we get about 50 miles outside of town, and we're getting 6-7 miles/gallon. We have been smelling a burning smell off and on since we left town, but didn't know what it was. Since it wasn't powerful or consistant we just shrugged it off. Then it started to get worse. Our friends were behind us, and came on the radio saying that the trailer was on fire!!! I checked the mirrors and saw some smoke, then i recognized the smell. BURNING RUBBER!! The fender on the trailer was misshapen and was rubbing the inside sidewall of one of the rear tires. I guess this trailer had never had this much weight on it. Well, we pull over, and pull the tire off, luckily it hadn't popped. So we use a rubber mallet to beat the fender straight. Not too much issue...

We go to Moab, break all our sh*t, and start heading back to waco a week later. We decide to go through monument valley since it is only a slight detour. In Arizona we're cruising down the highway, and the trac bar bolt falls out of the front end of the TJ.( i know not trailer related-but c'mon) So after almost rolling the TJ, they get it off to the side of the highway, and we replace the bolt. A couple hours later, we are cruising again, no worries, I am driving the Burb and Trailer, when BAM! a tire blows. Not the same tire that rubbed the fender. The trailer is weaving side-to-side and i slow down and pull off onto the shoulder. We have a spare, but it only has 11psi in it. So we use a 12v compressor my friend bought to inflate his air-mattress... after about 30 mins we are headed back to Waco.

The Lesson: don't rent shady-looking trailers with no brakes... and go prepared to do body work on the side of the highway.

LOL. You forgot about the top coming off the yj and ditching the rest of it in the denny's parking lot.

Diesel Jim

04-16-2002, 07:33 AM

i witnessed one once, some bloke was towing a caravan (nice and new, fiberglass) with his car, i was up a ladder fixing some lights outside a building when i heard a "pop".... one of his caravan wheels blew, so he keeps driving about 400metres, then decides to stop when he see's the smoke coming out of it, gets out, scratches his nuts for a minute as the whole caravan and car go up in flames!

by the time the fire truck arrived he had a steel floorpan of a caravan connected to the burnt out shell of his car!

Jamie

mudlite

04-16-2002, 09:11 AM

Thats some funny Sh$T. But I got ya all beat. I had a dumb ass buddy wire his dads truck to a rental trailer. Well I don't signal too much on the Interstate, but lets say when I did , there was a pulsing . Half way to Tellico we realized he had cross wired the fawking turn signals and brakes. Funny thing was all the lights worked when tested in daylight. But you noticed the other bulb lit dimly at night.

lesson learned, DIY!!!!!!!!!!!

The same guy , took off my GF's rear shaft at the axle and bungie corded it to the bumper. Well since it was a slip shaft, it proceeded to fling out the back and bounce off the hood of a Honda.

Lesson Learned , DIY!!!!!!!!!

I also lost a Rubber Maid container ful off tools on I81 doing 60MPH. I forgot to lock one of the side compartments on the bus.
It tried to keep up with me untill it hit the guard rail.

Lesson learned, check it twice!!!!!!!!

Never service you trailer brakes in long grass. Its hard to find the snap ring 20' from the hub.

Hard lesson learned. !!!!!!!!!!!

When flat towing a truck with an RV, never ask stupid people for directions. It always leeds to a dead end.

Hard, Hot lesson learned!!!!!!!!!!!

FCwheeler

04-16-2002, 09:55 AM

Here's one from last summer. Towing a 72 IH 1210 on a home-made (heavy as hell) dual axle, no brakes with my 88 Grand Wag, 360/727/229/D44's, 4" lift, 33's, and 2.73 gears. Coming through the town of Plymouth, there is a stopsign at the top of a hill. had to stop 'cause there were cops across teh streed at teh store. try to get back moving, tranny just slips, i'm sliding back down the hill. I wind it up to like 5 grand, finally the tranny grabs. Bang. Fawkin drivehaft is now in three pieces, and i'm still going downhill into the traffic thats there. While my buddy who i'm hauling the IH for holds the brakes, i get out, throw the hubs in, unbolt what's left of the driveshaft, jump back in, and grab 4-low, and we're back on the road. 50 miles in 4-low (actually FWD low) used 45 gallons of gas, and the temp was pegged at 260 the whole way. I have put 20,000 miles on that truck since then, but this summer it is getting D300/ D60/14bolt:D 2.73 gears and 33's is BAD. Even in a daily driver. Especially sucks for towing.

Doc Nickel

04-16-2002, 12:45 PM

Okay, I guess I'll add mine.

Go here for photos of the skidmarks, the squished Trooper side, the bent hitch and some cool Alaskan scenery. :D

http://www.network54.com/Hide/Forum/message?forumid=9013&messageid=1018683701

The page gives most of the details, but a quick overview:

Full-size mid-seventies' Chevy 3/4-ton, pulling a lightweight bare-bones tow-dolly with an '86 Trooper attached. 180 mile trip through the Kenai Mountains. Two hours out the Troop starts fishtailing- I try standing on the throttle to pull it out but no luck. To keep from killing anyone in the oncoming lane, I tried to manhandle it to the side. The Troop bounces off the ice-hard snowberm on the right and rams the whole mess back towards the oncoming lane.

By the time it's all said and done, I was facing back the direction I came, taking up both lanes at the end of 100-foot skidmarks, with a flat on both the Troop and the dolly.

No injuries, and, oddly enough, no major failures of the Underwear Support Systems. You guys might get a kick out of the strategic use of Mountain Dew and a paintball gun air tank to reseat the beads on the tires...

Went back the next morning to rescue both the Trooper and the kinda-bent dolly:

http://www.network54.com/Hide/Forum/message?forumid=9013&messageid=1018772616

Doc.

kodak

05-06-2002, 05:40 PM

I just found this PIC. 2000 4th pirate clean up. on the way out i lost the lower ctrl arm on the right side. I didn't have enuf to weld it back. so I was dollied home. oh yeh I also had a trailer on my rig so we were a double trailer. We were going to tow the trailer behind another jeep. so I was going to change the ball to the other jeep. well the other jeep has a 2" square hitch and mine is 3". Well I put it back on my rig. got distracted and didn't secure the trailer to the ball. going down 50 at about 9:00 pm at night. the trailer poped off the ball. damb that was scary. the sparks were flying back 20 feet. looked like flames.
hooked it back on and made it to Fremont.. here is the wagon train

http://home.off-road.com/~dkf/trips/rub-05-01/large-part2/pictu~48.jpg

jefe

05-06-2002, 09:30 PM

It was in the late 70's and we were set to go down to Baja CA. in two Toyotas. My GM powered FJ55 and a friend's Toy pickup. The pickup guy bails at the last minute and FIVE of us are forced to use my FJ55 as the conveyance. About 1100 lbs. of bodies. We are going to Malarimo on the Pacific side, about 700 miles South of L.A. It's the flotsom and Jetsom capital of the Western Hemisphere with stuff washing up on the beach from the far east, old shipwrecks, pieces of boats, etc. The only way to make it is to take my Conferr Toyota Jeep Trailer in tow with a lot of our stuff packed in it. The trailer had regular (read 2 leaf) trailer springs, kind of stiff and unbending. Five guys and all their stuff. We drive 640 miles to Guererro Negro the first day and get a Motel, The El Presidente. Next day we have lots of water and gas (the tank held 53 gallons of petrol) and we head out west on the lonely jeep road toward Malarimo. BTW, Malarimo in Spanish means: "bad to get to". It's 150 miles of dirt/sand/rocks from here on hardly a track through the heart of the Visciano Desert. Nothing here grows more than a couple inches high. We get way out there and I hear this thubbing noise from the trailer. The springs on one side are broken in half at the centering bolt hole. "Moyes" in spanish. We ditch the trailer and keep going with a now rediculously overloaded FJ55. We never made it all the way to Malarimo this trip as we get hoplelessly lost on the 50's Pemex roads, crossing sand dunes, running tires at low pressure. Every direction is a flat, featureless vista with no mountains, just flat. A local tell us to go 'direcho' not 'derecha' and we misunderstand. Hint; one is right and one is straight. Finally we come back the way we came and try to figure out what to do with the trailer. I had a "tomba burro" on the front of the Land Cruiser built around the Warn winch (kind of a Mexican trucker's front bumper, like a cow catcher). We disconnected the complete axle from the trailer and lay the carcass unloaded with the rear facing forward and the tongue on the roof of the L.C. facing rearward. We load everything back in the trailer including the axle and tires and drive for 6 or 8 hours on the jeep trail with the doors wide open and hanging out to see where we're going. You can only see the bottom of the trailer looking out the windshield. All four corners of the L.C.'s springs are on the snubbers. WAY overloaded. We must have looked a sight coming into Guererro Negro at sundown. Loco Gringos! Take the trailer to a mechanic who works most of the next day fashioning new springs or moyes for the trailer. He wanted to charge me $8 american. I gave him $15. I felt so rich. Things got a lot more pleasant as we finally spent a couple days camping and jeeping at
Bahia de Los Angeles on the gulf. The water temp was 88 deg. F. those September days.
Moral to the story. If your going to take a trailer off-road for any length of time, get some better springs than stock trailer springs.
regards, as always, jefe

B-rock

01-04-2007, 06:30 PM

sorry to stir up the past but dam there are some funny stories here. I'm sure there are some new ones out there!

pepe

01-04-2007, 08:14 PM

When I was about 17 years old I worked for a rental company. I had to make a delivery so a coworker (a total stonner) hooked up the trailer to the company truck and I hopped in and left. I was driveing through a residential neighborhood and going down a slight hill when I heard something. Yep you guessed it, the trailer had come off and was about 10 car lengths behind me and still rolling. I slowed down and let the trailer slam into the back of the truck untill it stopped. Come to find out the stonner had lost the receiver pin so he used a bolt insted with a non locking nut and hand tight. So the nut had worked loose and fell off then the bolt worked out and the hitch just slid out of the receiver. Saftey chains were used but that didnt help at all because stonner just looped them over the top of the hitch, so when it came out the chains just dropped off.

So I have it stopped and all is well except I dont have a pin or bolt to put it back in. Some old man comes out of his house and offers his help, I tell him what I need and he takes me around to his shed in his backyard. We go inside and it is plastered with naked girl pics and most were very raunchy, and there was a chair right in the middle of the shed. I guess it was his jack off shack! :barf: I quickly got my bolt said thank you and got the hell out of there. Although he kept offering me to stick around and have a beer. :shaking:

Lesson learned, never let anyone else hook up your trailer without thouroughly checking it out. Your ass just might be on the line. :flipoff2:

heepr

01-04-2007, 08:19 PM

#1 regret:
Putting a brand new tire on a bent axle. Only off a degree or so, but after a 500 mile round trip haul to harlan, that new bias ply is showing its cords and not only do I have to replace the new tire, but the axle also..

MudzerK5

01-04-2007, 08:33 PM

I loaded a Suburban 4x4 on my 20ft +2' dove trailer and parked it in the normal "place" that I tow my S-TON in - thinking it would have similar tongue weight. I was WRONG! I nearly lost it out on the highway from sway. The one thing you do NOT do is Panic. I did not slam on the brakes, I basically let the truck decellerate, and that did not work. Applied the brakes (including trailer brakes) to no affect. I applied only the trailer brakes which helped some. I ended up taking 2 lanes of the interstate by the time It settled down. :eek:

My tow rig is a 2wd 3/4 ton Suburban with 454. I will never load something that heavy (wrongly) again. I pulled over at a rest stop and moved it forward about 12" and it pulled like a dream.

White Rubicon

01-05-2007, 09:32 PM

I'm just lucky....

Parked facing down hill :rolleyes: I was loading my first buggy on the trailer and the truck ('68 Ford F150) pops out of park. :eek: Rolls 10 feet and my front bumper hits PERFECTLY on another trucks tire that was parked. No harm done.

Bought a new drop hitch and didn't match it up to the new trailer. :shaking: Put it on, hooked up the trailer and went wheeling the next day. Drove 50 miles to Reiter. Unloading the buggy the tong pops up 4 feet in the air and comes straight down on the hitch ball. No harm done. To top it off some quad guys saw the whole thing and GAVE me their extra hitch. :eek: :cool2:

I am no longer and idiot :flipoff2: and have some good karma to repay, to say the least.

mcamish01

01-05-2007, 10:32 PM

Going to Wisconsin to pick up Dodge truck, in february, towing 5200 lb 30ft gooseneck with 2002 dodge 2500 cummins HO and hit 200 yrd patch of ice as i past under bridge at night. Trailer caught truck, I corrected, caught it for a second, and then lost it as trailer knived the truck at 55 mph of the road onto the on ramp, the gooseneck itself blew out the pass. window as it hit the cab and then blew out the driver side tires past the onramp in a ft of snow....replaced the tires and went on down the road, albeit with a jacket to compensate for the lack of window. Alignement wasn't even out. Craziest thing....three other cars spun off the road while we were there and the police officer that showed up to assist us had responded to four wrecks there the night before. County was broke and didn't have the money to salt the roads.....bullshit, you'd think they would've had the money to post a damn sign:shaking:

Mudplugga

01-06-2007, 09:13 AM

went to a competition a few years ago with my 4x4 on a 4 wheel trailer and the guy on the gate told me to "go up the track and up the hill, park on the top"
What he didn't say was "go up the hill on the SECOND TURN"

The track was a good stone track with plenty of grip, the first turn up the very steep hill was grass!
I booted the Cruiser, as much as you can a 2.4 turbo diesel, and made it halfway up, then went backwards rapidly with the wheels spinning forwards and jackknifed with the trailer tangled up in a fence and the Cruiser about ready to tip!

But we got it free, and had a good days sport.
Then, seeing as how it was a nice sunny day, we decided to go to the pub for some food after the event.
The pub was on a different road than the one I'd used in the morning, and had a long and cery steep hill to go down. Long enough to boil the Cruisers brake fluid.
Luckily my friend in front had good brakes on his Isuzu Troopie and trailer so he stopped the both of us, with my Cruiser front bumper ( fender ) tangled up in his trailer lights!

Some day's I wonder how I get home.

Dave

Kyle_T

01-06-2007, 11:05 AM

i was on I35w near downtown fw and saw a little trailer towing one of those portable storage sheds come loose from the tow rig, it went across 4 lanes of traffic off into the grass and plowed a big light pole knocking it over in a charade of sawdust and flying wood. the driver didnt even slow down.

I have had a few stingers stolen, so now, i have a good one that i use and then have a cheap one that i modded on the truck when I dont. I pity the poor sap who steals the modded one.... I cut the ball shank off and JB welded it back together. it looks totally normal. that will teach a thief.

Albin

01-06-2007, 11:51 AM

Here's my trailer horror story:

My son and I on vacation out west for four weeks last summer. Driving from Death Valley to the Black Rock Desert in Northwest Nevada. We stopped in Fernley, NV to gas up and stock up; checked the tiedowns and trailer tires, all looks good. Head north to the Gerlach and Black Rock desert region via Pyramid Lake. Went up the west side of Pyramid Lake and the road turned to gravel about half way up. We stopped about 20 miles further at Sand Pass Crossing and took some pics.

The first time I knew something was wrong was when I took this pic:

Replaced the tire with a spare and went on our way. However, the combination of the weight of the Toy and the gravel dirt roads bent my trailer axles so it cost me $1200 to replace my 3500 lb. axles with 5200 lbs axles, 6 bolt wheels and tires. Oh well.

Al

korda

01-06-2007, 01:16 PM

Going to Moab this year. Pulling heavy ass TJ and XJ on heavy ass gooseneck. Realized shortly after leaving the brakes on the trailer weren't working well, if at all.

http://www.twincityoffroad.com/albums/album09/loaded1_011.jpg

Did this coming down out of CO. Didn't really notice it but saw the chunks of rubber flying in the rear view mirror.

http://www.twincityoffroad.com/albums/album10/sunday002.jpg

Managed to smoke the brakes on my truck stopping it coming downhill in front of some old guys barn. He rewarded us by showing off his homebuilt trike.

http://mn-jeep.com/gallery/albums/sunday/IMG_0307.jpg

I will say that when you pull a trailer out a farm field at 2 am and it takes 2 trucks, you might want to check it out a little better than we did. At least break the lug nuts loose so if you do smoke a tire it's easy to change. Thank god for the cordless impact.

comeonstart

01-06-2007, 01:16 PM

I have had tracked equipment slide off the side while trying to drive up steel ramps.

And on my last trip to uwharrie I had to stop about 10 times on the way home because I had one blowout and another tire started losing air around the bead.
________
Use i inhale iolite vaporizer review (http://vaporizerinfo.com/)

k-d-williams

01-06-2007, 02:09 PM

A few years back, I was towing my father-in-laws trailer and tractor. We were cruising about 65 mph when I looked left and a tire was passing us up on the highway. My first reaction was laughing and telling my father-in-law to look at this shit. A few moments later I realized it came from my trailer. The tire travelled accross the road through a yard and ended up going thru a garage door of a house. Stopped and gave them my insurance info and got my tire back. I then found out my father-in-law had just 2 days before had a flat fixed on that same tire. My insurance company went after the tire store and settled with them for partial coverage.

Lesson learned, always check your lug nuts if someone else put them on and you didn't witness them tightening them.

yager

01-06-2007, 04:16 PM

Ok ill share this one again... Nothing major just a bunch of luck... Towing jeep to paragon, then onto upstate NY to visit FAM.. Started when i got 2hrs out of NC, i realized i didn't have my trailer spare... Later that night at rest area pit stop, i came out and heard a slight whisteling sound, thought it was the big rigs but did a walk around, found valve stem/chafed almost cut in 1/2 at the rim... Ummm ok.. no spare.. Jacked up to take off load. Tried some rtv... By touching the stem it almost fell out.. ok now what....... Hmmmmm 11:30 PM BFE, hmmmmmmm.... Was about to drop my truck spare and remove the valve stem from that.. Then i realized i had a lawn/garden cart pile in the truck that i was giving to my dad.. Hmmmm... I defated it and used some plyers to wiggle the stem out.... Presto valve stem... I have TyrePlyers Bead busting tool and I carry it all the time, it has definitly earned its keep... Poped tire bead used mini lanyard time to fish in the stem.. And 12v micro air pump... And im off.....

Part2 - now wife had flown to NY to meet the fam and ride back to NC w/ me.. I had atempted to buy spare tire/wheel but only found the tire... oh well.. 30m North of hazelton headed south, just rounded the corner pulling that long long hill.. blub blub blub, tire gone... No pull off room on hill, drove up hill 3/4 to top to pull off area, tire shreaded.. Busted out tire tool again and swaped the new tire onto the old wheel... Damn valve stem is shot...Hmm i see a trend here... Ahhh I had bought some stems when i get the tire (just in case) Ok swaped on stem.. Hmmm new tire was stored flat and just would not seat on wheel... little 12v mini pump not doing it.. Jeep OBA no installed yet... crap... Drop trailer on side of road and send wife in truck to next exit to gas station.. She smiled and some good old boys steped up to help.....

Lesson learned - Change your valve stemps when you change your tire(s)... I had bought the trailer used, but while the PO had new tires installed, the shop didnt install new stems and they just were just plain dry rotted...

Cheepin

01-06-2007, 05:38 PM

http://mn-jeep.com/gallery/albums/sunday/IMG_0307.jpg

.

That is an old biker by that goes by the name of Blue.Cool old guy.Cruises that trike all year.

TheRamChargerMan

01-06-2007, 08:17 PM

Well, my stories are as follows:

1) never bolt a trailer tongue to the bottom of a 4" square tube bumper. Mine came out on some bumps and my grand dads bass baot took a ride thru the woods...luckily, some small trees stopped it with no damage.

2) After coming back from a run, I parked the loaded GN in the driveway and unhooked the dually. the next day whenI went to unload it, I hooked the dually back up (or so I thought). When you are loading your GN, make damn sure the lock on the ball is engaged. I didn't, and when I drove my rig up on the trailer, the tongue came off the ball, and the trailer rolled forward about a foot until the safety chains stopped it. Luckily, no damage to the truck bed or trailer. sure gave me a good scare tho when I realized what could have happened

3) Watched a friend tow a homemade trailer (from a house trailer frame) with a late model stock car on it to the track about an hr away. Tow truck was an old full size wagoneer with 39" mickey thompsons on it. Luckily we had cb's in both trucks and they were on ( I was following him). I saw him start to sway, and I saw him hit the brakes. I yelled at him not to. Made it 10 x worse. He was taking up all 3 lanes. Lucky no other traffic was around. I tried to tell him to gun it, but he wouldn't. Finally, I yelled at him to just do it and I'd explain why later. He was able to get it straightened out, and we pulled off at the next exit to check things out. When he stopped, I saw the problem. he had less than 15 # of air in his tires, and with the trailer, the rear tires almost looked flat. We aired them up, and had no more problems.

jpboyjeep

01-06-2007, 08:54 PM

My buddy was towing my Jeep with his truck and trailer. Early morning, slight mist coming down, didn't pay attention to it. We noticed cars in the ditches left and right, started to slow down to about 55, but when we let off the gas, we started to slowly drift sideways on the highway doing 55. We slowly drifted into the grassy median at about 50mph now with truck and trailer completely sideways now. As soon as we hit the grass, my buddy slammed it into 4 wheel and hammered the gas to pull the truck straight. We bumped over a few small ditches sideways, I was thinking we were going to flip! Stayed in the grass for a few hundred yards, trying to slow down a bit. Pulled back onto the highway doing about 30mph and hit the trailer brakes to bring it down slower.

The entire freeway was a sheet of ice. The mist wasn't on radar and none of the roads had been salted, froze on contact. We were in a traffic jam on the freeway interchange about 10 miles further down the road. A truck was stuck on the on ramp, right in the middle of the road, couldn't get it to move! When we stopped, we slid directly sideways off the road about 2' till we hit the shoulder. Radio said there were about 200-300 accidents that morning, you could see countless tire marks into the ditches and medians and all along the cement walls you could see fender and tire marks on the way back home that day.

I regularly test my brakes for conditions when it is wet out now, and I go grandma slow with my trailer in the rain!

Lucas

korda

01-06-2007, 08:59 PM

That is an old biker by that goes by the name of Blue.Cool old guy.Cruises that trike all year.

Yeah, he was awesome. We were all from MN and he said that he had ridden that thing up to WI. You're never sure how it's going to work out when you stop in front of a random barn and the guy comes out and says "Hey, I've got something in the barn you'll like. Follow me."

mustange70

01-06-2007, 10:37 PM

lol i have a few good ones too, most though were caused by fault of others.

A couple years back we were out camping in the canadian rockies (jasper/banff area), anyway me and my mom were in the truck and trailer (27 travel trailer, and our truck is a 93 f-150 4wd supercab with all the towing goodies, big sway bars bfg at's, weight dist. hitch, etc etc) my mom was friving (she doesn;t have a lot of towing experience) and i was taking a nap break from driving and so we start hading down this long gentle desent, as such i don't realize it and as such my mom not knowing a whole lot doesn't slow down before the descent and just uses the brakes to slow down, now on shorter length descents this wouldn't an issue, but this was like a 5 mile long descent, so i wake up to my dad who is following in our car flagging us down at the end of the hill in some hot springs town in b.c. canada due to the brakes on the truck smoking. Ended cooking a brand new brake job on the front of our truck from the long descent and not downshifting (little more trailer brake would've helped some but not much). Luckily we had a bunch of tools with us so we pulled the front rotors took em' to a local parts place got them turned and they got a new set of pads and got on our way within a couple hours.

Another time we had new tires put on the same trailer (same trip actually, this was on our to the mountains) and about 30 miles down the road we both tires on the passenger side of the traile go out. Ended up the front axle was bent just enough that the new tires ( square tire vs. the rounded style that was on it previously) well the front one was rubbing on the traile wheel well, and it overheated and blew out and when it blew it took out the other tire too, so called the tire shop and then we got them replaced under warrantee and got one our way.

Another time we were getting ready to head out to our first mud bog of the seaon last year, so we load our tow rig up with everything including the kitchen sink lol (we carry more tools with us to events than what most people even own, ie portable 8hp compressor and all the air tools from cut of saws to air drils and impacts, all electrical dianostic tools, enough spare parts to fix anything that could go wrong and can be fixed in the short amount of time at the races), So then i get the bogger loaded up on our 20ft falt dck tandem axle trailer, but my dad needed to move some equipment by so i move the truck out of the way test the trailer brakes real quick, then jump out and check the lights and everything is works good and the brakes are adjusted right,then (7000lbs axle custom made) head to the shop to get the chains and boomers to strap the truck and i hear a car drive in the yard and so i know its just my dads buddy coming for a visit, so i finish getting what i need and as i'm walking out i see the guy jump over the trailer and trip over the trailer plug in, so i double check the plug to make sure its connected and it is. So fast foward to the next day and after an hour of driving i had noticed that the trailer brakes weren't working right so i wait till we stop for some breakfast and i doublbe check the connection and i seems fine, so then we get going again and efore we get out of town a light turns yellow and i see what i think to be a cop sitting at the intersection waiting for his light to urn green so i hit the brakes not wanting a ticket and i end up sliding half the truck into the intersection with all fours locked up and no breaks from the trailer, and i'm like shit and i realize that the cop is a DOT, and we pray that he continues on, but about 5 miles out of town the guy catches up pulls us over about the brakes, he then checks the lights, nothing works, nothing at all, so the guy is really nice and says to pull into the next gas station (bout 5miles up the road) and fix the problem. SO we do and luckily we have everything to fix the issue. Turned out that my dad's buddy when he tripped had pulled out all the wires out of their connection in the plug-in but not enough to be pulled oiut of the harnes.

Lastly we headed to another event here this last summer and like usual we pulled over for a bathroom break and snack and to get some directions (it was in the middle of nowhere montana and we'd never been there), but no one knew, but luckily a local cop just walked in and said he headed out there to keep control at the local bar and sent us in the right direction and said he'd catch up and we could follow him. So fast foward about 15 miles and we see the cop has caught up and we're approaching some guy in an expy towing some old ten trailer thats been mickey moused into a garbage hauler it has lights and all, but all of sunden the expy starts gettin really big in th front windshield and i think holly shit this guy is turning when get within 70ft and can faintly make out his singal and brake lights and i jam on the brakes, and as most people know with a big truck and trailer in tow (the mudder and trailer weigh in at about 7000lbs, thn the parts and tools in the tow rig add another 1000, so we're right at the GVW limit) we ain't gonna get stopped in time, but its to late luckily though it was a + intersection and i was able to use the opposite road to drive on to avoid rear ending the guy and have a yard sale on the number 4 in montana. But the I got justice as the cop was right behind us and seen what happened, went and pulled the guy over gave him a ticket and made the guy get a flatbed wrecked to pick up the trailer :).

moral of that story, make friends with the local cops and make sure your tail lights are visible from a distance.

Myanarchy

02-08-2007, 02:14 PM

This thread is too good to go away. Keep them coming guys:D

Chass

02-08-2007, 03:44 PM

I was driving down 101 toward Coos Bay to ride at the dunes when the trailer in front of me left its truck. The trailer had a Sandrail, 3 dirt bikes, a quad and 10 gas cans on it. They all went across the road and into a 15 foot ravine with a creek in the bottom of it. Gas spilled everwhere into the creek. The owners didn't know what to do so I ran down into the creek and pickup up all the spilling gas cans and rolled th quad back up right. Turns out he knew he had a loose ball and his chains were only for show.

Lesson is, CHECK TO MAKE SURE YOU BALL IS TIGHT ON A REGULAR BASIS. A loose ball will fatigue from shifting forward and backward everytime you hit the gas and brake. Its not a lot but after a while the shaft of the ball can become fatigued enough to break off.

I know its been said a bunch here already but proper tongue weight is the absolute key to a good tow.

Chass
ct

Tydes

02-08-2007, 08:39 PM

On the way to the hammers driving in on the bumpy ass road my buggy fell off the trailer. Zero damage and nobody got hurt so it was pretty damn funny. So you wondering how it happened? I moved the buggy up on the trailer to get the weight better for the bumpy ass drive in and left it in Neutral. So with that little role it managed to bust the rear strap. Now its a two strap front and rear and always parked in park.

glp86

02-09-2007, 12:27 AM

We were flat towin the CJ behind the F250 and the passenger side wheel bearing burnt up and the axle and tire went shooting off the CJ. Behind that Powerstroke we didn't notice it until about a mile down the road when somebody pulled along side of us and flagged us down. That made for quite a spark show! So we had to have the CJ towed to a local yard and since we were about 2 hours from home and this was at night we had to leave it. A week later we return with a trailer and within 1 mile of where the a axle popped off the CJ we shredded a tire on the trailer so we had to stop a buy a new one.

Not really a trailer story but I guess it's close enough. All this to say, make sure mud doesn't get in your wheel bearings!

http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k124/glp86/JeepWithoutanAxle.jpg

http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k124/glp86/AxleandTire.jpg

What stopped the axle
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k124/glp86/Messed-UpSign.jpg

Norm

02-09-2007, 09:45 AM

I used to work at a equpment rental place back in the late 80's . I ran the yard, so I had the privilage of investigating accidents with our equipment. Our trailers had surge brakes :barf: and were either single axle with tilt beds or tandem with ramps. Since they lacked WD bars and were 7K trailers, we only put them behind 3/4 ton or larger trucks with 10K hitches( and yes they were technicly overloaded over 5K). I remember two bad ones

1) was a trailer we rented to a guy with a jeep XJ, we said he needed a bigger truck so he came back with a 3/4 ton he borrowed from a buddy. He drove the trailer home and them put the trailer on his jeep XJ instead of just using the 3/4 ton, he then drove about 50 miles to pickup his other jeep that broke down on local trail. He almost made it home, lost it on a hill and rolled. He died, but only killed himself. Darwin at work I guess :shaking: .

2) a lady rented a trailer to pick up her car. She loaded the car backwords on the trailer leaving it tail heavy. The trailer started to sway when she got on the highway, she ended up rolling at 60MPH and seriously injured herself and passenger. She tried to blame a faulty trailer hitch, but some pictures from the police and engineering firms study of the hitch steel proved her wrong.

3) My favorite was watching a guy load a small tractor onto a tilt bed trailer on his POS import PU bumper. He was the owners buddy and we warned him not to do it. He hit the trailer a litlte fast dropping the bed down hard. The bumper folded like a taco :laughing: .

braxton357

10-07-2007, 12:24 AM

Top.:flipoff2:

:edit: No scary stories yet other than forgetting to latch the hitch when loading the trailer, but I enjoy hearing other's dumbassery.

GONRACIN

10-07-2007, 02:17 AM

nissancrawler

10-07-2007, 02:51 AM

I wouldn't say it's a horror story danger wise, but...

I rented a 75 hp bobcat that came on this god awful piece of crap heavy equipment trailer from the cat dealer. I go to hook up to it, and they won't let me, they have to do it all. :shaking: Whatever, I go in and pay, come out, they say it's hooked up so I hop in the truck (like an idiot) and don't look.

I pull out of their lot, make a hard right turn onto a busy 4 lane street, and the trailer is towing damn hard. Hmm, no place to pull over, so I drive the next block up. Unfortunately, some dumb bitch stopped in the middle of a two lane street to make a left turn, so I have no room to turn onto the side street. Meanwhile, it's towing harder and harder.

Onto block #2. Wait, school bus unloading kids, can't make that turn.:mad3: Wait for the light to go green, pickup tires start spinning, can barely move the damn trailer. I finally get it going, and can pull off on block #3.

It turns out they hooked up the runaway brake chain (stupid surge brakes) so tight, that when I turned it fully applied the master cylinder to the point it bent the lever, then broke the damn chain. The brakes were locked full on, I couldn't get it loose, and at that point I notice 3 of the 4 trailer tires are flat. :eek::laughing: I was going to unhook the trailer and drive back, but...in the process, the sliding collar on the trailer hitch got held in place by the runaway lever. :homer:

By the time it was done, they had to have somebody come with a torch, and cut the brake lever off to release the brakes and get away from the coupler, so I can unhook the trailer. They drove a new trailer down, swapped the bobcat to that trailer, and off I went.

They had a tire truck show up to replace all 4 tires, and ended up needing 3 new wheels.

Morons.:mad3::shaking:

abig84

10-07-2007, 06:58 AM

ive been really lucky'

best i got was my first time towbaring a s10 i just bought a few miles to my house. about 20mph one of the sides of the towbar came off and made a hell of a noise and spark show. but the other side stayed in spot. fixed it and brought it home

Eskimo

10-07-2007, 07:19 AM

uh, long story short, towing my buddies "new" (to him) XJ to his house on a tow dolly with my Bronco II, .

You're lucky as hell that's ALL that happened to you.

Mudplugga

10-07-2007, 11:23 AM

I always lash the wheels / axles down and let the body rock and roll on the rigs springs, the whole thing handles so much better that way.

I've got a really low slung 4 wheel trailer, fully braked and in good condition. But it can still bite you in the arse.

Last week I was braking for a very busy junction when I hit a diesel spill and ended up sliding and jacknifed, just over the stop line! :eek:
My Daihatsu Rocky has a 3.5 ton tow capacity, but it doesn't have ABS. Whether that would have helped, I don't know?

A few years ago when I was towing a similar rig, again a fully braked 4 wheel trailer, down a long steep hill the fluid in the Cruiser brakes boiled and I lost all brakes.
Luckily my friend in front, also towing, had good brakes on his Isuzu Trooper and we pulled up with me jammed firmly against his trailer!

Needless to say I changed the brake fluid pronto :shaking:

Dave

Travis Waldher

10-07-2007, 12:02 PM

I give you, exhibit a:

http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=603116&highlight=travis+trailer+coupler

DrVic723

10-07-2007, 01:44 PM

About 4 months ago I jack knifed going down the freeway ~75mph in rain with a 32' trailer... no casualties, but leave LOTS of room when at those speeds while wet...

BackNBlackTJ

10-07-2007, 09:30 PM

First one:

17yrs old pulling a friend's 2 horse trailer home for them cause thier truck broke down... The trailer didn't have any chains (first mistake) and was built out of what looked like scrap pieces of steel. It was kind of a scary looking contraption that I should have never agreed to hook up to my truck. Anyway, just north of Kingsburg Ca. on the 99 I heard a crack, sounded like a tire blowing apart. I looked up in the rear view just in time to see this thing dig into the pavement and begin rolling end over end in the right hand lane (no horses, good thing it was empty). :eek: luckily no one was hit and it came to rest with a thud on top of the Caltrans barbed wire fence just of the shoulder. When everything stopped moving and my heart slowed to a semi normal pace I began trying to figure out what had happened, the coupler was still attached to my truck :confused: the welds on tongue looked as though the had been cracked for some time because parts of them were rusted and parts were freshly broken. To say that the trailer was a complete lose would be an understatement... and I got a ticket from CHP for pulling the pile of crap down the road. Some friend, he stiffed me with the busted up trailer and the ticket.

Oh, and I had to pay to fix the the fawkin' CalTrans fence. I'm just thankful that no one got hurt.

Second one:

Several months ago, pulling my rig home after wheelin' in Florence AZ. We had a horrible day wheelin, I had managed to totally fawk up my axles, got it onto the trailer finally way after dark and headed down I10. I got to Red Rock when I felt a jolt, looked in to the rear view to see the Jeep and trailer somewhat airborn. Jumped on the binders and headed for the shoulder. Then I see what appears to be one of my trailer tires bouncing down the freeway headed for the median and cars dodging it. Quick once around trailer only to find that all 4 tires are still there... ??? that's when I noticed that the spare was missing. I had tied the spare tire down to the tongue, because I hadn't finished building the mount for it yet. My strap holding the spare had broken, the tire went down under the trailer and stood upright. The jolt I had felt was the spare rolling under the first axle, sending the trailer airborn. I bent the front axle so bad that the tires were nearly worn out by the time I got my pile home. The loading ramps and bracketry were mangled, still can't get the one out. The spare tire was completely fawked, bent rim and ripped up tire.

Had to put a new axle under the trailer, it was ruining tires. Ended up mounting the bent one up on the front of the trailer bed... hubs and all... makes for and awsome spare tire mount :D

metty

10-08-2007, 07:24 AM

i was pulling my dads 18ft trailer from raleigh to boone with his 99 f250 psd. trailer is loaded with my 89 SA toyota on 38's and all my worldly possesions (moving up to my new house). came to where I40 and I85 merge, there is a long sweeping entrance ramp there. came into the ramp doing about 60-65 and the trailer started swaying so i got on the gas and held on. the next 15 seconds scared the hell out of me. the trailer continued to sway harder and harder till it was whipping the PSD across both lanes. all my shit started flying off the trailer all over the side of 40. at this point i am doing like 85-90 with the gas on the floor trying to make it straigten out. finally i start going up hill and the swaying slows and then stops. i pull over and get out, figure out that one of the tires had blown and caused the trailer to start swaying. i ended up losing a whole bunch of my stuff that i couldnt find, including my m8000 that was in the bed of the toyota.

tacoma73

10-08-2007, 07:52 AM

hadfield4wd

10-08-2007, 08:17 AM

Used to own a Bobcat 642B with a single axle tiltbed trailer with surge brakes. 12 years ago. coming down a hill in my 3/4 ton GMC the back end jerked and i looked in side view mirror and saw the side of the bobcat. I floored it to the bottom of the hill to keep it behind me. I got rid of the trailer that day and got a tandem axle with electric brakes.

patooyee

10-08-2007, 08:22 AM

I've got a great one!

One time I had my buggy on the back of my truck on a 24-foot bumper-pull trailer going through downtown Atlanta around 3pm. I'm doing about 70mph, which is 15 over the limit, but if you've ever been through I-85 in that section, you know that, even at that speed, people around you are doing 90 everywhere. So I wasn't going that fast relatively speaking. Ahead of me is a guy with about a 30' bumper pull enclosed Harley trailer. Ahead of him is some dude in a early-90's model Nissan Maxima. Altogether, there ar 5 lanes of traffic going north and 5 going south divided by a 4'-tall concrete wall in the middle. Traffic in both directions is flowing great until this fucker in the Nissan decides that he needs to perform an all-out emergency stop in the middle lane with tires smoking, brakes stinking. The dude ahead of me with the harley trailer slams his brakes on and the trailer starts jack-knifing. He manages to keep it under control to where it doesn't hit anyone, but it does slide accross the two lanes to his left, causing all of that traffic to also perform an emergency stop. Since I'm behind him, I also have to slam my brakes on, at which point my trailer ALSO starts jack-knifing. But mine is going to the right. I manage to control it and not hit anyone, but my trailer then comes to a stop blocking both lanes to my right. So at this point this guy has caused all traffic to emergency stop in all northbound lanes during rushhour. That's HUNDREDS OF CARS that almost piled up. Here's the best part. The guy in the nissan jumps out of the car holding his cell phone to his ear, RUNS accross the now empty lanes of traffic (Empty because our jack-knived trailers are blocking them.) and jumps up and uses his free arm to hang himself off of the concrete median wall. He the raises his cell-phone hand to wave at a south-bound driver, who I assume he was speaking to on the phone, drops back down, jumps back in his car, and drives off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!! THE MOTHER FUCKER ALMOST KILLED HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE SO THAT HE COULD WAVE TO HIS BUDDY GOING THE OTHER DIRECTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was so amazed that I didn't even think to get his plate.

J. J.

vanguard_anon

10-08-2007, 09:07 AM

jumps up and uses his free arm to hang himself off of the concrete median wallFor a second I thought he killed himself.

patooyee

10-08-2007, 09:43 AM

I Wish!

b2dude

10-08-2007, 10:07 AM

i wonder if he anticipated you guys blocking all of the traffic, or if he planned on doin some bobbin an weavin to wave at his buddy:laughing: :laughing::laughing:

rockdog57

10-08-2007, 10:43 AM

Thought I'd post my personal experience. Towing two toys on my 27' gooseneck to Moab a couple of years ago, we were headed into Wellsville, Ut.
An older couple in front of us pulling a nice new $50.000 plus fifth wheel had a guy decide to make a left turn at the last minute in front of them. So he jambs on his brakes. No problem for him to stop quick. But a hell of a lot harder for a big ass fifth wheel and my loaded gooseneck. By the time all the dust settled. I was sitting to the right side off an older lady with eyes the size of silver dollars. I had managed to just verily miss the back of their trailer by swerving off the road to the right.
Note to self, never follow close while pulling. Also, make sure trailer brakes work DAMN GOOD!!
I was shaking like a leaf for an hour after. Thank god I didn't destroy their brand new RV!

renolaw

10-08-2007, 03:01 PM

Gold Lake Trail, CA 2005-- headed in from staging area to camp site--- going faster than i should-- guys in camp calling on CB how all the beer is cold and ready to enjoy-- so I step on it a bit more. The Venturecraft pop up trailer trailer has CRAP torsion suspension and the left tire bounced off a rock, seen in lower left of frame-- and over it goes-- all i see is this big black mass moving across the rear view mirror. Uh oh! At least the Treg pintler hitcvh worked well...

disconnect and turn around to use winch to roll it back over. Forgot to unhook the electrical, so it all got pulled out when i moved fwd. Doh!!

Then look closely, it landed upside down in a stagnant pool of skeeter infested water... nasty. At least the sleeping bags and coolers inside were OK, since the top lid clamped it all together.

lesson? so slow w/ torsion suspension, even at 5psi.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y12/RARECJ8/DSCN1983.jpg

jasonmt

10-08-2007, 03:12 PM

My Daihatsu Rocky has a 3.5 ton tow capacity, but it doesn't have ABS. Whether that would have helped, I don't know?

really???
Towing Capacity 1500kg

from here: http://www.drive.com.au/used/search/detail.aspx?id=3485913&pg=1&pp=12&d=0&nv=1&sg=1901197202&mode=Specs

So you know more about Mudplugga's rig than Mudplugga himself?

There would be no chance that the Daihatsu Rocky that Europe/UK got is what the rest of the world calls a Daihatsu Fourtrak which is a larger model?

And of course the later model Daihatsu Rocky/Fourtrak "Independent" with the turbo diesel would not have a 3.5 tonne towing rating...

Mudplugga

10-08-2007, 03:17 PM

really???

from here: http://www.drive.com.au/used/search/detail.aspx?id=3485913&pg=1&pp=12&d=0&nv=1&sg=1901197202&mode=Specs

Yes, really.

http://uk.cars.yahoo.com/car-reviews/car-and-driving/daihatsu-fourtrak-2004288.html

Ignore the "8 litre" bit, that should read 2.8 litres

Dave

sn0border88

10-08-2007, 04:46 PM

No bad stories of mine yet, I jackknifed one but kept it in control.

However, I hauling my rig when I came across a brand new TRAILBLAZER hauling a new holland skid steer with tracks and 3 different buckets. Needless to say, he way overshot his towing capacity. Had to slam on the brakes for some odd reason the trailer jackknifed and flipped before popping the ball off th hitch and slamming it through the rear door where his kids were sleeping. :shaking:

I stopped to help the guy as it happened about 1 min before I get to the scene.

tacoma73

10-08-2007, 05:04 PM

So you know more about Mudplugga's rig than Mudplugga himself?
There would be no chance that the Daihatsu Rocky that Europe/UK got is what the rest of the world calls a Daihatsu Fourtrak which is a larger model?
And of course the later model Daihatsu Rocky/Fourtrak "Independent" with the turbo diesel would not have a 3.5 tonne towing rating...

Well, Nancy, that's why the O RLY. Now check Mudplugga hisself clearing up the apparent discrepancy. Note that NOT FOR ONE SECOND was I calling Mudplugga a liar, I know he'll clear this up right quick. See below. :flipoff2:

Yes, really.

http://uk.cars.yahoo.com/car-reviews/car-and-driving/daihatsu-fourtrak-2004288.html

Ignore the "8 litre" bit, that should read 2.8 litres

Dave

Thank you, Dave. I didn't think you'd be crazy and try and pull weight with the US-sized Rocky. :D Cheers!

EDIT: If you choose a model thats fitted with the torquey 2.8-litre intercooled turbo diesel unit, youll also get a hefty 3,500kg towing capacity. 7700lbs. DAAAAAAMN

Ok, so you're crazy. I wouldn't tow that much with one of those. :eek: Camarogenious could use your help!!! hahahah

jasonmt

10-08-2007, 05:26 PM

Well, Nancy, that's why the O RLY. Now check Mudplugga hisself clearing up the apparent discrepancy. Note that NOT FOR ONE SECOND was I calling Mudplugga a liar, I know he'll clear this up right quick. See below. :flipoff2:

Cool, I took your post the wrong way. :p

Rockabilly

10-08-2007, 06:21 PM

was hauling a van to the scrap yard for a friend when some jack off cuts me off and slams on the brakes. Two straps broke and I almost lost the van. If I hadn't left the trailer winch hooked up it would have come off the trailer. Instead it only came half off. Scared the living shit out of me.

Urban Wheeler

10-08-2007, 07:28 PM

Many moons ago, say, back in 2000, I was towing a Scout loaded with crap on a dolly. Tow vehicle was another Scout minus the hardtop. I picked it up outside of town, and not knowing the back roads home, I got on the interstate for a few miles. (about ten) About 5 miles from my exit it starts swaying. I gently eased on the brakes and the whole shebang came around. Had it swung right I would have been in the median and just waited for traffic to clea so I could be on my merry way, but it didn't. I went grille first into the guardrail, the hitch twisted off the ball, and both safety chains broke. One was still hanging from the bumper when I got out, the other was nowhere to be found. Fortunately I stayed right side up, I didn't have any roll protection at the time.

About two years ago I was working at a trailer repair place, and had been sent to UPS to pick up a unit for repalcement of the coupler. I show up, grab the trailer and take off. In my haste I forgot to latch the damn thing, and one bit of buckled pavement was all it took to pop the hitch off the ball. I could feel it swaying on the safety chains.

WebsterRedneck

10-08-2007, 07:48 PM

Well, fortunately for me I have yet to have a towing horror story; but i do have one that happened to a buddy of mine as I was following him.

So my friend and I went up to pick up his 79 chevy K-10 from his house. He drove up in his 99 S-10 and I followed up in my 85 F-150 with the intentions being that I was going to pull the trailer back for him.

Anyway, we get to his house and this car "trailer" magically becomes a car dolly that is in such questionable condition I refused to even consider hooking it's tongue to my ball. I told him forget it and start loading up to go back home when he says whether i wait or not he's going to pull this K-10 on a dolly with his s-10 for the next 200 miles:shaking:

I tried talking him out of it, but he was dead set on getting the damn thing. I figured the best thing for me to do was to just hang around and follow him so "when something goes wrong I'll be there to tell you I told you so"

We make it about half way and things are going remarkably well when all of a sudden the truck on the dolly starts wagging back and forth, but the tow vehicle was still tracking straight as an arrow :confused:

i don't know what exactly transpired is his truck next, but all of a sudden the s-10 spun to the left and the K-10 on the dolly T-bones him. All of this comes to rest across the center 3 of 5 lanes of traffic during rush hour on I-270 in south St. Louis county.

His s-10 started right back up and he pulled out of traffic, then i waited for a cop to show before doing anything else. once the cop was there to divert traffic I chained up to the k-10 and got it onto the shoulder where we could sit back and look at what had happened.

This questionable looking tow dolly wound up being more questionable than I thought. The tongue of the trailer and the safety chains were still attached to the s-10, but the bird shit welds at the dolly had broken. apparently the k-10 tapped the s-10, put it sideways and then t-boned it. fotunatley it happened like that since we were on quite the downhill and god knows where the truck would have stopped.

and of course I was there to say "told you so". what else would a friend do :flipoff2:

Justin

red90runner

10-08-2007, 08:04 PM

So end of summer last year, I went with my family up camping near fordyce. I always have flat towed my samurai using a tow bar. I get it up and back from camping no problem and then stick the sammi with the tow bar still attached in my backyard. Following week, I take the sammi out (with tow bar attached to front mounting points) and drive it from my backyard to my driveway to wash it. Regretably, I decided to take it around the block for a little spin before I washed it all down.....

Since the tow bar was not secured 100%, the first decent size bump I hit down the hill from my house made the tow bar come slamming down onto the concrete. This caused it to launch the entire vehicle up in the air about 3 feet until the tow bar was forced back underneith the vehicle, bending the tie rod in the process.

The tie rod was the least of the problems. Since the tow bar was attached to my steel bumper/stinger, it forced the stinger back into my grill and hood (creating a perfect outline of my stinger in the hood) as well as cracking every weld and weak steel structure connecting the bumper to the frame. The frame actually ended up bending and pushing my cab back where now I cannot put the doors back on since they dont fit. The shackle mounts on the front of the vehicle were also cracked in half. It basically FAWKED SHIT UP!! Moral of the story: make sure your tow bar is attached before you drive your rig around the block. Heres a pic of the hood and body damage. Everything else at this point was fixed.
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s260/red90runner/CIMG0333.jpg

GONRACIN

10-08-2007, 11:36 PM

You're lucky as hell that's ALL that happened to you.

naw, I'm not lucky...I'm good... :D

not to mention I drive and haul professionally....

In all fairness, we weren't going that far. Only 1/2 hour max...

BobBarry

10-09-2007, 09:26 AM

I've had three episodes, two that were near-misses and one that was just a loooong trip:

1. Rented a U-Haul car trailer to move some cars around; only thing they would rent to tow it was one of their box-trucks. The leg in question was when I was towing a '68 Toronado shell with no engine to a guy's house. The trailer had wheel-straps and a hand-cranked winch and just for "extra" precaution, I used a small ratchet-strap (I'm talking one of those 1" nylon straps). I get it to the guy's house, only to discover that during the 40-mile trip, all the tire-straps had come loose, and the winch-cable was undone, leaving ONLY that 1" ratchet-strap holding the car on the trailer... :eek:

2. Now I've picked up my own tow-rig, a 2wd '97 F-250HD, but am still borrowing trailers. I take my Cherokee to a mud-run and get there VERY early, park where directed at the far end of a field, wait all day to have my 30 seconds of fun in the bog, and then go to load up only discover that my 2wd pickup and rented trailer are on an island of grass now surrounded by a moat of mud created by all the mud-rigs that have circulated around the field. So I get a fellow club-member to steer the F-250, chain it to the bumper of my Cherokee, and drag both of them through the mud back to pavement (that was a longer run, and more fun, than the mud-bog itself). I get everything back up on pavement in this tiny parking-lot of the restaurant in front of the field where the mud-bog was, get everything loaded up, put my foot on the brake to get ready to pull away when my foot goes to the FLOOR! :eek: Turns out the rear line rusted out and burst *just* at that moment. Five minutes later, and I would have lost the brakes while towing. Got my friend from whom I borrowed the trailer to come with his dually Cummins Dodge to tow my pickup home while I drove my Cherokee.

3. Great day wheeling out in the Berkshires on private land, but I've got a party at a friend's house I promised my wife I would be back in time for. It was just over a two hour drive, party was at 7:30, and I left the forest at 3:30. No problem, right? It was kind of a warm day, and the F-250 was towing great, though it would run a little warm up some of the long climbs in the hills, it would cool off going down the other side. Well, on one long climb, it warmed up, and up, and up, until the needle started heading all the way up. I pull over to a burst of steam from under the hood, from a metal coolant-pipe fitting on the 5.8L's intake that had corroded through. It was a non-standard fitting, so there was no way to bypass it. I couldn't do anything there on the breakdown lane, so I limp it up to the top of the hill after it cools down and survey my options. It's now about 5:00 on a Saturday, I'm 100 miles from home, and that F-250 won't get home on its own. Luckily, "just in case" I had thrown the 4" drop hitch in the back, and I had a 2" square receiver in the rear bumper of my Cherokee from back before it was built up... So you know what happens next. Air up the XML's, switch the ball, and hook up a towing setup that surprisingly didn't alarm the MA state-trooper who had pulled over to see if everything was all right:

http://www.drbob.tqhosting.com/cherokee/towingf250_1.JPG

Of course, without the trailer connector still installed, the trailer had no brakes, and with the original cooling-system, the Olds 455 (from that '68 Toronado mentioned in story #1, in fact) was running MUCH warmer than I would have liked (probably 240º-260ºF), even though I was only going 40-45 mph the whole trip home on the Mass Pike. I pulled over a few times to check the load was secure, and once to pry the rear fender off the tire since most of the load was on the rear axle.

JUST as I pull up in front of my house, the cooling-system of the Cherokee lets go, spilling its guts through a now-trashed water-pump. I was also thankful I had just installed rear springs from a J-20 in the back of the Cherokee, so it actually handled the load pretty well.

Oh, and I was able to get to the party with my wife by 8:30, but I was a little tired from a 2hr-turned-5hr trip... :shaking:

Story 1 could have been avoided if I had checked the load more often, while stories 2 and 3 could have been avoided if I had THOROUGHLY replaced all metal pipes and lines on my F-250, or if Ford hadn't used such crap metal in the first place...