A couple of Tie Down bashers.......... I have them on my trailer, they work fine......
So I assume you haven't ejected any wheels on the highway then
? I never had that problem on any car, truck, motorcycle, or trailer I've driven except when using TDE hubs. The fifth trailer we owned lost
two wheels on the highway in the first six months of a trailers life. The lug nuts didn't back off, all five studs sheered off clean. The first time it was the right hub and the wheel passed us on the shoulder when we applied the brakes to take an exit. Four out of the five wheel holes showed
no wear at all. It looked like a handful of very violent rotations had happened on a single stud/wheel hole. BoatUS unlimited trailer assist paid for nearly 15 years of membership fees that day! The dealer agreed that should have never happen to a two month old trailer and repaired it at their expense. TDE accepted no blame, claimed the lugs were severely over torqued at the time the wheel came off, and made the dealer cover it all. The dealer strongly suspected and I knew they were not, but out of caution the dealer replaced all of the studs on the other side with new studs and we only tightened the nuts with a torque wrench. A few months and a few thousand miles later I tapped the brakes and the wheel from the left side came off the trailer launched across three lanes of traffic and luckilybounced into a ravine instead of crossing into the other bridge and killing someone coming the other way. The studs were again sheered clean off with no sign of rubbing. It was a good thing we were prepared and carrying a spare hub and a ton of tools this time, because we were hundreds of miles from home. The trailer dealer downgraded us to a less expensive brand and lower capacity trailer that did not use TDE hubs and refunded us the difference. That was more than six years ago and the lower capacity brakes/hubs of another brand have handled the same boat without issue.
The only problem I have ever encountered with any other brand I have used (UFP, Dexter, Reliable, and two different unbranded Chinese hubs) has been water intrusion in the back seal after at least three years and tens of thousands of miles of use. I have also read similar accounts of studs suddenly sheering and ejecting wheels from three other TDE brake users out there on the 'net. I don't want to get tied up in a lawsuit for years and don't want to live with the guilt of killing someone. I personally would not take completely free TDE hubs much less "practically" free ones.
On the other hand, ours never got old enough to rust so we never experienced the caliper seizing on the rotor which seems to be most people's complaint...
(Don't bother replying to this. I accept you are smarter than me. I accept that you know what the problem was and it was all my fault. I accept that I'm a clueless newbie whose only been pulling trailers for 22 years. Cheers!)
