The spindles ride on top of the axle so the bottom of the boat trailer is closer to the ground. I basically bought 2" heavy wall steel square tubing and lap welded 3500lb. I've only built one homemade trailer axle and it was for a boat. Just like the utility trailers that use 3/4"x 16 ga expanded metal, and I use 3/4"x 11 or even 9 ga. When it breaks, bring it down here, I'll fix it." But if you want to go buy a cheap POS trailer, that's up to you. And do you know WHY it's cheaper than my trailer? Because it's assembled with substandard materials, and even more lousy procedures. I always love it when people want a price to build a trailer, then I tell them, and they gripe and complain "but I can buy a trailer for such-and-such amount at wherever" Well, I guess when you're a large company, you've got lawyers, so, you're not too worried about being sued when someone's trailer wheel falls off, goes through someone's windshield and kills them.īut as for me, I have never, and would never design such a POS, and I sure wouldn't let it roll out of my shop. What a brilliant design! I bet the dumb SOB that thought of this probably went to college for 12 years, with a degree in engineering. So, in other words, you can sit there and waste a dozen large tubes of grease in a grease gun, fill the entire axle tube full of grease, and none of it EVER makes its way to the bearings, it's just filling the axle tube. I don't like that method very much, as the cross drill is a stress riser, and I have actually seen spindles snap cleanly in two at this point.īut these mental midgets didn't even have that much sense! Wanna take a guess what they did? Instead of the cross-drill, they drilled the hole all the way through the spindle.
I've seen a lot of spindles where they install the zerk fitting in the end, then they cross-drill the spindle, where the hole is between the sets of bearings, so grease will flow into them. Seems that the educated idiots didn't do much studying about how to build spindles. Well, upon further examination, I had my answer. How can this be? The end of the spindles have zerk fittings, and I've been greasing them on a regular basis!! Then I noticed something else.the wheel bearings were completely dry. Well, apparently, the college-educated idiot designers at Reliable Axle company didn't think they needed to waste extra material by using spindles with studs.they were just butt-welded to the ends of the axle pipe!!! WTF?! I have NEVER seen something like that before. Most spindles have something called a 'stud' which is an extension of the spindle, that is supposed to fit about 3-4 inches into the axle tube.
? Also, I noticed that the material they used to make the axle was paper thin, about like a shower curtain rod.īut worse than that.when I tried to save the old spindles.I realized there was yet ANOTHER problem. The instant I tried to cut through the axle, there was a grease fire. No problem, I'll just take the torch, remove the spindles out of the old one, get a new piece of sch 40 pipe, and make a new axle. I beat it with the chipping hammer, and busted a hole right through! Well, crap, now I gotta make a new axle. Once I had the axle pulled, I inspected it, and noticed heavy rusting in the area where the U-bolts were. Well, my springs got here, and I proceeded to dismantle the old springs. I ordered a set, along with U-bolts and tie plates. When I started looking, I saw that one of the spring leaves had rusted and snapped off. She was going across the highway to the river, and she heard something fall off the trailer, going down the road. We're always religious about rinsing the trailer every time it's used. The ski only has about 75 hours on it, and the longest run the trailer has ever been on was from here to North Myrtle Beach, going up Hwy 31 at 65 MPH, that's only about 40 miles each way. My girlfriend has a Yamaha VX110 jet ski, when we bought it brand new in 2008, we also bought a brand new aluminum frame trailer, made by Triton mfg. If you have such a trailer, check to see if this is who made the axle, if so, you should consider replacing that POS with something better. Well, let me tell you, they are NOT reliable. Sorry if this comes across like a rant, but I really HATE sub-standard procedures and workmanship.Ī lot of PWC trailers, particularly the Triton brand, are being sold with axles made by Reliable Axle company.
0 kommentar(er)
