Share Pics of People Hauling or Towing Something Wrong

Renze · Oct 27, 2023

RandyT said:
It may not be from the bearing welding to the nut, could be the lopsided wheel hub rubs the nut hard enough to rotate the nut to shear the split pin. But I have seen the outer wheel bearing stuck to the retaining nut to the point that it requires a hammer and punch to separate the two.

Red hot nuts and inner races dont weld together untill you stop so they can cool down and fuse. Then it takes a lot of determination to shear a castle nut cotter pin, with that much resistance when you take off.
I have split wheel hubs and even transmission casings when bearings jammed, but never sheared a cotter pin. To be honest, with the tire radius, wheel load, 0.5 tire to road friction, 30mm castle nut inner diameter, cotter pin diameter i am used to, i doubt a jammed tire can generate enough torque to shear the cotter pin. The math of an average hub just makes it very implausible, to be honest.

Either way, when youre able to separate the nut and the inner race with a punch and a hammer, thats not enough force to shear a cotter pin.

RandyT · Oct 27, 2023

Renze said:
Red hot nuts and inner races dont weld together untill you stop so they can cool down and fuse. Then it takes a lot of determination to shear a castle nut cotter pin, with that much resistance when you take off.
I have split wheel hubs and even transmission casings when bearings jammed, but never sheared a cotter pin. To be honest, with the tire radius, wheel load, 0.5 tire to road friction, 30mm castle nut inner diameter, cotter pin diameter i am used to, i doubt a jammed tire can generate enough torque to shear the cotter pin. The math of an average hub just makes it very implausible, to be honest.

Either way, when youre able to separate the nut and the inner race with a punch and a hammer, thats not enough force to shear a cotter pin.

Whatever. Something is causing the pin to shear off and the retaining nut to unscrew on the left side of trailer axles.

lilranch2001 · Oct 27, 2023

It’s magic!

BigBlue1 · Oct 27, 2023

You don't have to lose the axle nut to have the hub come off. If the outer bearing disintegrates (lack of grease... burns up and comes apart) then the hub no longer has retention.

JohnDeereJoey · Oct 27, 2023

BigBlue1 said:
You don't have to lose the axle nut to have the hub come off. If the outer bearing disintegrates (lack of grease... burns up and comes apart) then the hub no longer has retention.

Yep...this happened to me. Bearings, wheel, tire...gone! The nut was still there,

lilranch2001 · Oct 27, 2023

I hate it when you lose your nuts!

Renze · Oct 28, 2023

lilranch2001 said:
It’s magic!

Or urban legend.

Dftodd · Oct 29, 2023

California said:
No time for a photo, but today at the merge point of two freeways I saw a CHP officer, flashing lights on, parked behind and protecting a small junk trailer. As we got closer it was obvious the hub and wheel had come off the trailer leaving just the stub axle. Somebody forgot the cotter pin?

Seemed to me the only way to get the pickup and trailer to a safe place would be to just order the pickup to drag the trailer as-is to the shoulder beyond the merge, because getting a wrecker in there and hooked up with a dolly would disrupt traffic and likely cause crashes.

Personally, I would have dragged the trailer to a safe spot before I stopped.

I've done it many times before.

Years ago I had a customer damaged an axle and abandoned the piece of towable equipment on I-40 in Orlando smack dab in the middle of a construction zone.

I just whipped up in front of it while the cop was blocking traffic in that lane. I told the cop to follow me. I latched onto the equipment real quick and dragged it down to a safe spot to complete the repairs.