gumby said:Well I put three coats on this morning. If they need a long heat cycle to burn off the goo I am hosed. Even less time with hot tires in autoX vs. hillclimb.
These tires are under 2/32nds and showing shadow seams already so not much loss if it doesn't work.
Good luck - And really it seems most people have good luck with the stuff. Just apparently not me. :-)
The trailer has a new temporary home.
I took off the wheels outside as part of the plan to replace all the tires. The hub that had a tire missing didn't want to rotate freely. There was stuff rattling around in the brake drum. I took it off and the pieces of the brake assembly fell out. So it could be that the wheel somewhat locked and that caused the tire to blow. But it didn't completely lock up since it the whole tire wore away and I could turn the wheel it just caught at spots.
Anyway the whole brake hub would need to be replaced and of course the brakes on the other wheels are probably not much better. If I have to replace that much I figured it is just time to replace the axles. So wheels went back on with the spare in place the the missing tire. Moved the race car to the opposite side of the garage since the garage is deeper on the side where I normally park the car. (The bump out for the future bathroom takes up space on the other side.)
Once the space was free I very slowly backed the trailer into the garage. This is where I wish I had done 10' wide doors instead of 9'. But it fits if just barely.
Dismounting all the trailer tires today. The wheels really need a coat of paint before I have new tires mounted. But of course you wouldn't know that since I happened to take a picture the one wheel that isn't bad because it was the spare and is several years newer. I dismounted that one because although it is the newest wheel it didn't have the newest tire. When blew a tire in 2016 I put a new tire on one of the older wheels. I couldn't get so lucky to have the new tire on a new wheel that didn't need to be painted.
I also measured the trailer axles. They are 95" hub face to hub face. That is a standard size. However the sprint perches are not the commonly available 80". They are instead 78 1/4" I need to search if I can get them in that size. The axles I was looking at on eTrailer.com are 80" between the spring perches and I don't see that they have 78 1/4". I could order the 80" and plan on cutting them off and welding them in the correct location. Not sure at this point.
What tire choice have you decided on when you get that far?
Hey I just noticed a black box lookin' thingy at the top of your garage door track...is that
what i think it is and what brand is it?
KevinGale said:Good luck - And really it seems most people have good luck with the stuff. Just apparently not me. :-)
Quick follow up. I took the gamble because the front tires are about ate up anyhow, and I knew I would most likely get 6 runs today. FWIW, I run an 11" wide asphalt circle track slick on a 10" wide wheel with ~640lbs on each front corner. I work em pretty hard, and with air temps above 90 today there was plenty of heat to go around. I only treated the fronts as the rears are much fresher and I only did one treatment of 3 coats, not the full 6 coats.
Three greasy runs where the truck refused to turn in; lots of cone calls! On the fourth run things came around and the front end started sticking pretty well. The last three runs certainly had more front grip available than at my previous event with the same tires. I give it a mixed result. At an event where I might only get 3-4 runs, I wouldn't even think about this treatment for autoX. Maybe treating from the inside would work better so there isn't the greasy goo on the tread surface, but I don't have a tire rotisserie.
759NRNG said:Hey I just noticed a black box lookin' thingy at the top of your garage door track...is that
what i think it is and what brand is it?
Just a side mount garage door opener. Much better if you are going to do a lift since there is nothing over the car. I think is is better in general since it's a more direct system and gets rid of the long chain. Not sure of the brand. I'll try to remember to check when I am out there nexty
gumby said:
... Three greasy runs where the truck refused to turn in; lots of cone calls! On the fourth run things came around and the front end started sticking pretty well. The last three runs certainly had more front grip available than at my previous event with the same tires. I give it a mixed result. At an event where I might only get 3-4 runs, I wouldn't even think about this treatment for autoX. Maybe treating from the inside would work better so there isn't the greasy goo on the tread surface, but I don't have a tire rotisserie.
Thanks for the update. Lack of runs is a hillclimb problem as well. At Burke I had three runs all weekend. I elected not to run in the rain Sat and gave up after three slippery runs on Sunday. Maybe if I had more runs it would have helped. Maybe with six coats it would have taken 6 runs. I don't know but I still can't see trying it again. Too much risk.
The axles fell out of the trailer.
Of course there was hours of dealing with very rusted bolts. All the 15+ year old trailer bolts were nasty. I found out my Milwaukee 1/2" battery impact can snap off a 9/16" bolt. The torch and cutoff wheel also both got a workout. There is still part of one bolt in the spring but I have decided to replace the springs as well so it is probably staying there.
Now that the axles are out I found that they are not 95 inches wide but 94". I must have made a mistake trying to measure them by myself while they were under the trailer. It was a bit tricky. I'll have to triple check before I order anything. I found on the easternmarine.com Dexter 3.5K axles that are 94" and also 93". The tires right now stick out just slightly beyond the fenders. The tread of the tire is under the fender but just barely. So I'm thinking of buying the 93" and tucking them under a 1/2" on each side. The Eastern Marine axles also come with weld on spring perches so I won't have to worry about finding the 78 1/4" I have.
My wonderful wife spent hours wire brushing and cleaning the trailer wheels. They should be ready for a coat of paint tomorrow.
759NRNG said:What tire choice have you decided on when you get that far?
On the tires I'm pretty sure I'm just going to the local (well rated) tire store and have them mount up what they recommend. I really don't put many miles on this trailer and my guess is having newer tires is far more important than exactly what brand. I'll probably just avoid the buying the cheapest tires.
Working on the trailer today. First step: Cut up the old axles so it will be easier to load them into the truck to got the scrap steel bin at the transfer station. Plenty of rust here!
The next step was less fun. I've been crawling under the trailer and trying to get all the rust and flaking paint off the frame and cross members. I've got about 1/3 of it done and I need to stop to go buy some more eye protection. A full face shield and glasses are not enough. I keep having to get stuff out of my eyes and I'd rather not make another trip to the eye doctor to pull something out of my eye. I've done that twice in the past.
So off to look for some goggles that completely cover my eyes. I also could use some more paint stripping discs for the drill.
Got the goggles so at least my eyes are clean. That is the only part of me that is clean! This is what I look like head to toe and you can see the blackness on the floor coming off the trailer.
Nasty job. Pretty much all the paint is loose and the steel is rusted. I'm stripping off most of the loose paint before I paint it. No way I can do a perfect job since that would require taking off the deck and all the wiring. But I should at least be able to slow down the rust and extend the life of the trailer.
All of the rust is just surface so no structural issues that I can see. And if I paint most of the underside hopefully it will stay that way.
KevinGale said:The tires right now stick out just slightly beyond the fenders. The tread of the tire is under the fender but just barely. So I'm thinking of buying the 93" and tucking them under a 1/2" on each side.
When I redid my car-hauling trailer a few years back I replaced the fenders with some wider fenders thinking I'd like them to cover the tires a little better. Same effect as narrowing the axles for the purposes you're discussing. If i had it to do over, I'd stay with the slightly-narrower fenders the trailer had on it to begin with. That's because having the tires stick out a bit means (and I'm sure I'll NEVER get into this situation...) they'll maybe scrub something before I get into the fender if I'm up against a fence post or a tree or parts car or something.
In your case...another inch of clearance to the garage door is probably welcome though...so there's that. I'm just sharing a little bit of my "I didn't know it until I knew it" experience ;).
In reply to ClemSparks :
I guess we will see if I made a mistake with the narrower axles. They are on the way.
I haven't hit the fenders on anything but people borrowing the trailer managed to hit both lights that stick out in the back. They also broke the old fenders by walking on them which was part of my reason for replacing them with fenders strong enough to walk on. And they broke the old tongue jack (had to replace that too). One good thing about adding the tire rack to the front of the trailer and cutting up the old wooden side rails is that no one wants to borrow it anymore. Somehow those two things changed it from being a utility trailer to a car hauler. It's been good for me since I don't either have to say no or get the trailer back broken.
Long weekend working on the trailer!
Friday afternoon I noticed that I was missing one of the weld on spring seats. The new axles came with them but the packaging broke open at some point during shipment and one of them went missing. I'm sure the company would have replaced it but I didn't want to wait days to get a new one. So I cut one off the old axles. The cutting with sawzall was more of a problem that I expected and vibrated the workbench a lot. Suddenly there was a crash.
It is going to take forever to sort the nuts, bolts and washers back into the correct bins. This was originally a kit from McMaster Carr and I just keep restocking it. It has commonly used course thread fasteners for 1/4", 5/16" and 3/8". For now I didn't want to lose the time so everything is just in a drawer to get it all off the floor.
I got the old spring seat off and spent half an hour grinding off welds and wire brushing so it is ready to reuse. That took away one worry.
Saturday it was painting. I hate doing major paint jobs like this inside the garage but I didn't really have much choice. It was many hours of painting the trailer most of it lying on my back under the trailer. Scrubbing paint off my skin afterwards wasn't fun either.
Sunday I was on to mounting springs and axles. No missing parts there, yay!
Getting the axles aligned was a major pain. They need to be square with the hitch which I determined by measuring from the front of each axle to the hitch. The problem is there are three dimensions in this. There is a back and forward in relation to the hitch. There is side to side on the trailer so the axle is centered and finally you have to worry about rotation since the axle tubes are cambered so they straighten out under load. When adjusting one measurement the other two seem to always move. I needed to get my wife to help because it isn't easy to do the measurement to the hitch with one person. But poor Kelly would help me measure then I would realize I messed up another measurement and had to call her back again. This went back and forth a few times.
But finally after seemingly endless adjustments both axles were locked in place and I could weld the spring seats onto the axles and torque everything down.
I've said before I'm not a welder and my results welding on my back over my head are not usually pretty but these didn't come out half bad. Of course they are in a place that no one will ever see them.
And Sunday evening it looked like this after a coat of paint. And yes I did paint over the new bolts everywhere. I didn't have the energy to take it all back apart again. Besides I told myself it was for corrosion protection and to help lock the fasteners in place. :-)
Nice work on the trailer - that peace of mind is worth a lot to me.
As for sorting the fastener tray, that sounds like a nice evening in the house to me...but maybe that's my OCD talking. 
Mezzanine said:Nice work on the trailer - that peace of mind is worth a lot to me.
As for sorting the fastener tray, that sounds like a nice evening in the house to me...but maybe that's my OCD talking.
Yup hoping to have piece of mind on the trailer reliability for a while. Of course the first trip out I'll be worrying but if that goes well it should be good for a while.
I have bit of OCD. :-) I'll be very happy when every nut, bolt and washer is back in its correct bin.
Tonight I got all four hubs on. Just wiring left to do. My wife (Kelly) was also really nice to me today and took the trailer wheels to the tire store and got four new tires and the spare I kept mounted. So I should have this thing back on its wheels soon. Good thing since I have a race this coming weekend.
Nice work stool.....Life sure is easier when the pit crew (SWMBO) provides assistance.....good luck this weekend...where?
759NRNG said:Nice work stool.....Life sure is easier when the pit crew (SWMBO) provides assistance.....good luck this weekend...where?
Yeah old modified wheels make excellent stools and are strong enough to support most anything. Off to Mt Ascutney this weekend.
Made a trip to the secret tire dealer today. Added the pile of new rubber already in place from the new trailer tires. Those should be going on the trailer tonight if all goes well.
In reply to KevinGale :
Thank you for convincing me to never ever rehab an old trailer. Wow does that look like a lot of filthy, tedious & time-consuming work! It’s lolling great though!!!
Pete Gossett said:In reply to KevinGale :
Thank you for convincing me to never ever rehab an old trailer. Wow does that look like a lot of filthy, tedious & time-consuming work! It’s lolling great though!!!
It was filthy. I was covered head to toe with old paint and rust.
Painting was just as bad. What I needed was to be able to flip the trailer on its side but I couldn't really do that so I had to paint it lying on my back under the trailer. I was covered with black paint. It would just mist everywhere. I had a respirator so I wasn't breathing in the paint but even with fans the fumes were a bit much. And I have black paint dusk all over the garage. It will take a while to get that cleaned up. I hate doing major paint jobs in the garage but I couldn't really move the trailer and even if I could the job would have been harder. In the garage I could use a creeper to slide around under the trailer. Outside I would have been crawling in the dirt.
Yeah it was a sucky job. I'm hoping I at least get another decade of service or it probably wasn't worth it.
Last night I first tested wiring. Looks like I got everything right. The trailer brakes and the new lights work.
The instructions on the brakes talks about how to break them in. It involves a lot of driving. You have to use the trailer brakes alone to slow the vehicle down from 40mph down to 20mph (or 25 depending on who you ask online). The brakes need a minute or so of cooling between stop and you might need to do this 30 times or more and maybe 50 depending again on who you ask.
The math was pretty simple I might have to drive around for an hour. Kelly had a good idea. We decided to go out for food. Most of the restaurants are 30+ mins away in Concord, NH. I had already done 10 of the 50 stops locally. So we headed out. Before we got on the interstate I got in a bunch of stops. We then did 20 mins of highway driving and some more trailer stops on the other end.
By the time I got home I had plenty of stops and with the highway miles I got to test the reliability of the new setup before I take it to the race tomorrow afternoon.
When I got home I took advantage of our flat yard to just pull it around near the motor home.
In reply to KevinGale :
I used to use an engine hoist to lift up one side after the other. It’s a two step process. Using s chain to reach down to the trailer raise it up as high as the hoist will. It’s still not vertical but you can put a couple of braces underneath to hold it at that angle.
Then shorten your chain and hoist it vertical and slightly off the ground. That worked on the 16 & 20 foot frames. On the 24 & 28 foot frames it was too heavy for the engine hoist so I used two engine hoists.
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