Lost the trailer!!!!!!!!!!!

[Nat]

Some of you have been following the thread on my search for a backhoe, so I thought I would fill you in. I ended up buying a Ford 555B. A friend of mine and I went to get it today with his F-9000 tri-axle dump and 20 ton Hudson trailer. We were about 1/2 way there( about 15 miles), when the trailer came lose. The safety chains did their job and the trailer stayed with the truck. It has a 40 ton pintle hitch, the one that has the 2 bolt flange and a big nut on the back. He had done a walk around before he picked me up but couldn't have seen it then. The shank broke off where it goes into the flange. We went to the parts center and got a new hitch and 1 glad hand that got cut, and were back on the road in an hour or so. We got the hoe home without any more problems. I hate to think what could have happened if we were on a 2 lane road, and met any oncoming traffic, as it happened we were on I-85 in the right hand lane and no one beside us.
It's home now, but raining so I'll wait a few days to work with it any. I think I'll also post on the safety board, if we had taken the hitch off and inspected it any cracks or breaks would have been easy to see and it would only take a minute or so to remove the big nut and the hitch would come right out.
Later, Nat

 

[ronjhall]

Glad to hear that everyone is safe and no damage other than some lost time.
It's always good to do a quick last check before hitting the road.
Sometimes even that is not enough.

 

[Nasty135]

WOW! /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gifGlad the TLB wasn't on when that happened!!! /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif Man that would have been hairy.

 

[Tigerotor77W]

Glad everything is all right.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

This morning I'm scheduled to repair a dump trailer I made about five or six years ago. It started out as an all steel eight by twelve dump bed off of a one ton truck. I built the frame and used torkflex seven thousand pound axles with brakes.

Sunday the owner of the trailer loaned it to a friend of a friend to remove some excess dirt from his home. It has a two and five sixteenths coupler. Evidently the borrower only had a two inch ball.

The trailer came off the ball. The safety chain broke the attachment on the truck. Trailer then went across traffic and flipper over on it's top. No one was hurt. But the hydraulic power unit was thrown clear.

I glanced at it yesterday. At first glance it looks like the only damage evident is the hydraulic unit is a total and the coupler plug needs to be replaced. Hopefully I'll have it on the road by noon today.

There are two schools of thought on safety chains. One is they should be strong enough to fool the cops. But weak enough to allow the tow vehicle to escape a mishap. The other is the safety chains are there to keep the trailer with the tow vehicle when it happens.

I'm of the second theory. I've lost trailers twice in my life. Both times I kept the trailer behind me brought it to a safe stop. (knock on wood)

 

[daedong]

Harv,

This reminds me of an occasion when i had a single axle trailer behind a small sedan with two calf's in it. The couple came off, the chains were a little to long. the calf's were standing at the back of the trailer,.......... and .........you guessed it the A frame and coupling tried to come through the trunk and back window /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif. They turned into very expensive calves. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

 

[Bird]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( they should be strong enough to fool the cops. But weak enough to allow the tow vehicle to escape )</font>

Harv, I knew some folks use chains that are too weak, but when I was at the Northwestern University Traffic Institute, I learned that some people have actually used heavy chains, sawed one link in two, and glued them back together so they'd break away easily.

I'm like you. I've seen one fatal accident in which a boat and trailer broke loose, crossed the median and killed the occupant of the car it hit, and I wanted to be sure my trailers stayed with my tow vehicle.