skirted death on the highway

so my good friend buys an 07 bayliner 237 deck boat a couple months ago.

then we all rent a lakehouse on hartwell for the clemson/auburn game (clemson grads btw)

we check the trailer and add grease to all the bearings (dual axle trailer) I see water in all 4 and just pump till all the contaminated grease/water comes out. I wanted to take the hubs off and check the brakes but all 4 of our jacks are bad (mine are really old, his are harbor freight specials). none could keep the trailer up.

both myself and his wife try to talk him out of it but he persists (new boat owner wanting to tube on the lake lol).

we get on the road, and about halfway there around 10pm we're passing a semi as I'm getting off the phone with my fiance and we start to fishtale...

I watch the trailer and get ready to "chastise" him on high speed passing while towing and then I see it.....





a couple sparks. I watch.

a couple more. not good. I say "josh, get off the road. sparks. get off now."

he does so and we're both thinking maybe the trailer brakes are locked up. hmmm.

walk back and I can smell burning bad. then I see the glow. oh my god. both passenger side outer wheel bearings must have been salt water etched. they were completely gone and the inner bearings were barely there. the axles were GLOWING deep red. only thing holding both wheels on was the axle nut washers which cut their own groove.

I dont even want to know how it would have ended if both wheels fell off on a 5800-lb boat/trailer @ 70-ish mph on the highway.

thank god.

anyway, much cussing from josh ensues, trial/tribulations encountered....a local guy with a big heart answered our yellow pages ad at 11pm and then next morning he was scouring for parts. luckily the axles were good. we got new bearing sets and some good used hubs next morning and were back on the road $778 later (ouch, but not me haha).

also, while it was all apart...trailer brakes were noticed to be completely GONE. I mean gone....100hrs on boat since new. its like they locked in the brake position and then dragged....again...wonderful salt water.

and yes, we soldiered on to clemson for the weekend and then drove back without trailer brakes. :facepalm:

gotta love the big guy

Re: skirted death on the highway

also, I have a pic of the repairs half done but cant upload right now. will upload tomorrow. didnt think to take moment-of pics lol. mosquitos and highway speeds at night are scary lol.

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Glad you guys are ok "stackz". It could have been real ugly. I'm sure Josh learned his lesson. It's one thing if I hurt myself or my rig because I took shortcuts, but I couldn't handle injuring others due to my negligence. Geaux Tigers !!!

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You might want to check out the trailer balance too because that fish tailing probably may bot have had anything to do with the bearing failure.

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Remind me not to send my kid to Clemson. j/k

Glad you are safe. That's a bit scary and hopefully your pal learned his lesson. I have been late many a time because I wanted to check something out that I wasn't feeling comfortable about. Better an hour late....

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Glad you guys made it through that one. We live and learn. Glad that was the case this time!!!

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Man was that a close one. Glad everyone is alright.

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Fed said:

You might want to check out the trailer balance too because that fish tailing probably may bot have had anything to do with the bearing failure.

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the fish tailing was because he's not the best driver in the world and was getting too comfortable towing the trailer at highway speeds...so he was going too fast and passing a big truck. I didnt get time to yell at him about it though as the other issue came up at the same time lol.

Re: skirted death on the highway

Glad it worked out ok for you guys.

When the bearings went bad it let the "drums" camber outwards this put pressure on the front brake shoe, which in turn put pressure on the back brake shoe. so you basically applied the brakes. they were probably draggin for quite a ways to wear them out like that.

When I brought my "new to me" boat home I didn't even think about the wheels. I got home after using two tanks of gas. figured I had the same problem. I jacked the wheels off the ground and was able to pull the drum off without removing the nut and washer... and the brakes were metal to metal.. Yep I dragged them all the way home, so my first repair to my boat was a couple hundred in wheel bearings and brakes..

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Lesson learned about sinking a trailer in salt water. Avoid it if you can. If not, minimize the number of times you do it. And be quick!

In any case, rinse rinse rinse, and rinse immediately, not when you get home and the salt water has dried. Twice that day. Most likely the previous owner never did.
Better check out the inside of the trailer frame; they rust from the inside out.

Re: skirted death on the highway

Home Cookin' said:

Lesson learned about sinking a trailer in salt water. Avoid it if you can. If not, minimize the number of times you do it. And be quick!

In any case, rinse rinse rinse, and rinse immediately, not when you get home and the salt water has dried. Twice that day. Most likely the previous owner never did.
Better check out the inside of the trailer frame; they rust from the inside out.

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I think Fulton makes a fresh water washdown system for trailers that you setup so you just hook the hose up and turn the water on. I think you could make one yourself pretty cheap. I can't see that it would get everything so you'd probably still want to hose it too.

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Interesting... I think I am going to replace the bearings, races and seals on my new-to-me boat trailer.

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glad to hear nothing worse happened. Drama might have been avoided if you guys had pulled over to make sure a hub was not running hot after a few miles down the road. It's a good habit to feel the trailer hubs at every gas/snack break, but for new-to-me trailers (or borrowed) that I haven't had the chance to service myself, they get more vigorous attention. (stop & check that they're running cool after the first few min's, and again 30 min or so down the road).. your friend sounds a bit too relaxed about pulling that much at freeway speeds. Hopefully he realizes how lucky you guys were.

Re: skirted death on the highway

metalwizard said:

Glad it worked out ok for you guys.
When the bearings went bad it let the "drums" camber outwards this put pressure on the front brake shoe, which in turn put pressure on the back brake shoe. so you basically applied the brakes. they were probably draggin for quite a ways to wear them out like that.

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yep. bad thing was the brakes on this trailer were already completely gone. next morning while the other guys were repairing one hub I was looking at the other one. the shoes were literally rotted away. no fresh contact marks on them either. I'm thinking the PO hooked up the trailer brakes wrong at one point and wore the pads down already. then the metal shoe frame just rotted away. I dont think the PO ever really cleaned the trailer...just launched/loaded and "maybe" rinsed with a hose? I dont even give him that much credit at this point though. I'm going to have to teach my friend how to rebuild drum brakes this winter though for sure. even the brake cylinders looked rusted. the tension springs had delaminated from their factory yellow and green paint as well. I swear you wouldnt think the brakes were as new as 07, you'd think they were on a 68 mustang that sat in a field for 40 years...

BF said:

glad to hear nothing worse happened. Drama might have been avoided if you guys had pulled over to make sure a hub was not running hot after a few miles down the road. It's a good habit to feel the trailer hubs at every gas/snack break, but for new-to-me trailers (or borrowed) that I haven't had the chance to service myself, they get more vigorous attention. (stop & check that they're running cool after the first few min's, and again 30 min or so down the road).. your friend sounds a bit too relaxed about pulling that much at freeway speeds. Hopefully he realizes how lucky you guys were.

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we had done that. had to stop for gas once and then stop for dinner a second time. I always do the "stop walk around" when towing a trailer. check straps, tongue, wheels, etc. no indicators and then bam 40 miles later, sparks, blown off bearing buddies, etc. I mean seriously when I say the bearing buddy on the back wheel blew off...it friggin blew off as in exploded. the inner portion of it was still on the hub in shrapnel mode. I dont want to know how hot that grease got before the pressure caused that. how we didnt hear it I dont know either.

I will say this. the rest of the trip he was paranoid as anything and pulling off for whatever reason to check them lol. a car burning oil would pass us and he'd think it was the brakes. we stopped at a toll on I-185 and a tractor trailer with a bad wheel got in front...and he thought it was us burning lol. but at least he has a new respect for trailers and why I was being anal in the first place.

oh, and he uses "salt-away" religiously when he uses his boat. but kinda hard to maintain something that was already falling apart.

Re: skirted death on the highway

sschefer said:

I think Fulton makes a fresh water washdown system for trailers that you setup so you just hook the hose up and turn the water on. I think you could make one yourself pretty cheap. I can't see that it would get everything so you'd probably still want to hose it too.

Click to expand...

I had a hose system like that on a used trailer I bought but it fell apart. While it was working, I didn't feel like it got everywhere. I don' tknow if it was a Fulton or any brand or home made. Luckily for me, there is a hose on the ramp, so I can hose it right there at the water's edge. I realize that's not an option at many busy public ramps.
Remember, if you spray too hard, you can force salt water into places. This is why you don't pressure-wash a salty sandy beach vehicle.