Check your trailer hitch

[LAWNGODFATHER]

For those that overload trailers and others. Check your trailer tounge.

Today I had the lovely, and joyous time of waiting for a welder buddy to come to side side of the road in a pristine neighborhood to cut off and reweld a new trailer tounge on one of my trailers.

It normaly would hold the 11 yards of much, but today it did not want to do it.

The coupler broke right off the trailer, and it is the original.

They had such a fun time hand shovling the apoxamitly the 7.5 yards left on the trailer on to another one to go 1/2 mile to shovel it again off again.

1) don't overload your trailer

2) check the coupler quite oftem for cracks.

Good thing it only cost me a 6 pack of beer, and about 25min of shoveling this time, but won't happen again "knock on wood".

[Greenstar Services]

Good advice. Your lucky thats all it cost.It's a habit for us every morning before we leave the yard to do a safety check of the truck and trailer.

[jeffyr]

Originally posted by LAWNGODFATHER
Class 5 here.

1000 tounge weight 10,000 towing.

I have towed 24,000 with it before.


Is this why it broke ?


BUSTED !!!!!:eek:

[MOW ED]

The spoken word fades into space but the written word can haunt forever.

Lawnsocrates 3-23-02

:p

[SJR Lawncare]

We all overload our trailers & trucks thinking nothing bad will happen, "as long as I'm careful & go slow", but $hit happens & it can turn out very badly. The trailer tongue can snap off, like LGF had happen, or in an overloaded truck or trailer, you can easily lose control & start slamming other cars & innocent people. Lets use this example shown by LGF, & try to keep safe weights on our trucks & trailers, because you never know what could happen around the next corner. I am guilty of this too.

[Bunton Guy]

I had the ball on my leaf vac trailer ( 2" ) come unthreaded and actually dislodged the trailer from the truck...good thing the chains were holding it on to the truck. The coupler nailed the rear bumper then dove into the ground I had to quick pull off into a U-haul parking lot and drop off the trailer go back home and tighten the ball and come back ! now I drill a hole right under the tongue (under the nut ) and put a pin through it so it CANT ! come un done.

[ProMo]

I bought my new enclosed trailer and the guy put on a 2" ball first time i unloaded it started to roll towards the lake good thing it had safety brake attached i made trailer guy come to site with correct ball

[mxrdrvr3]

was pulling my uncles $15,000 bike on a motorcycle trailer stopped to eat and someone pulled my pin out of the reciever....

thank god for safety chains!!!!!!!!! didnt do any damage. when i stopped and looked the reciever was still hooked to the trailer and lucky I had another pin in the truck:D

[SCAPEASAURUSREX]

Trailer Balls..... Look into Converta ball balls.. they have very high weight ratings and are already set up and drilled to accept a cotter pin under the nut...

Receiver tube pins.... Use locking ones only....

Trailer coupler... Use padlocks to secure to ball.....

Also... With new trailers and old... Lift up on tongue when hithced to make sure it is secure to ball before moving...

...... A friend of mine baught a new enclosed trailer, had it a few months... Did not over load it, only used for moving small equipment , like saws, shovels., etc...... The tongue actually cracked and snapped.. not at the coupler, in the middle of the 6" steel tube tongue.... No thats scary, Can happen !

Daily or weekly saftey checks should be on all of our minds and schedules

[HBFOXJr]

I use all pintals for extra security.

[LAWNGODFATHER]

Originally posted by jeffyr
Class 5 here.

1000 tounge weight 10,000 towing.

I have towed 24,000 with it before.


Is this why it broke ?


BUSTED !!!!!:eek: The spoken word fades into space but the written word can haunt forever.

Let me guess you quoted my words from the "Hitch reciever" thread. This is a "trailer tounge" DUH!!!!!!

My hitch receiver did not break.

In the words of "jeffry" BUSTED!!! LMAO

I love how people "use" reading comprehension.

[jeffyr]

Wow ! Now that's anger ! I was only busting chops.

I know what you wrote in the other post and it states that the Hitch reciever was overloaded. With those kind of habits I was merely pointing out that maybe there is a pattern here. I guess that was only a 1 time overload you were bragging about. "Class 5 here. 1000 tounge weight 10,000 towing. I have towed 24,000 with it before. "

"I love how people "use" reading comprehension"

I am not sure what this means.



"This is a "trailer tounge" DUH!!!!!! "

I know what this means......but just have not heard it spoken or seen it written by many adults in person or a professional forum.


Bottom line: Mr LGF was right.

jeffyr

[heygrassman]

Care to share the type of trailer??

jf

[LJ lawn]

I HAVE YOU ALL BEAT.-i think. TOP this one.i was returning home with my rig after dropping off a full load of cars (4) at an auction.i was going over a pretty rough and bumpy stretch of 3 lane road when the piece that is welded to the 5th wheel plate suddenly broke.it's a good thing that the guy i bougt the tractor from welded a piece of metal across the back of the tractor frame which cought the trailer.so here i'm doing at leat 45mph and i hear bam! and see a giant shower of sparks flying off the bottom of the trailer as it grinds into the pavement.i'm in the slow lane but have nowhere to pull off AND i'm losing air pressure (the brakes will lock up with too little air pressure) so i dragged the trailer at least a 1/4 mile to an off ramp.and made it. luckily a guy i knew stopped so i could use his cell phone ,i had to get 2 different people out there to fix the trailer and the truck. they had to weld the kingpin plate back onto the trailer on the side of the road in busy traffic.the air tank was damaged also when it let go. so the other guys had to fix that.it took over 3 hours.and $400 to get me rollin' again.and i still had a 3 1/2 hour ride to get back home. heres a link to a photo of the trailer connection on the rig - http://www.erols.com/julie19/photos/rig.jpg. it's a little blurry(i just snapped a digital pic of the pic) but you can get the idea of the connection point that broke.talk about (a) STRESS (b) worked for free that day.just thankful it happened when the trailer was EMPTY not full with cars.

[MOW ED]

I love how people "use" reading comprehension.


Comprehend this, if you are too sensitive to take a little crap then you should hitch up your wagon put your pouting lip in it and go home.

I'm killin myself here.

What do you expect?

[LAWNGODFATHER]

No I can't take a joke. Your saying wasn't even close.

[Scraper]

Looks to me like someone has a swollen head from all the publicity.

[LAWNGODFATHER]

Looks like I wont make another imformative post again.

Ghee you wonder why people become smart asses.

[LeoS818]

Its a good idea to check the lights once in while. Isnt it Mike? LOL

[kris]

Originally posted by HBFOXJr
I use all pintals for extra security.

Ill second that

[Mow&Snow]

Originally posted by LAWNGODFATHER
No I can't take a joke. Your saying wasn't even close.

But it sure was funny:D

[Bladewielder]

LGF if right-on about trailer safety importance. My dad once had a hitch fail on his stock trailer. The tongue was heavy enough to snap the safety chains right off the receiver hitch (it was loaded with cattle at the time). He immediately slowed down and was privy to the horrific scene of his trailer actually pass him on the road! Unbelievably the trailer simply veered into the ditch and stuck its tongue into the dirt and stopped. Inspect those trailers daily and make sure the safety chains are strong enough and attached securely. Bulldog hitches are cool too. There is no "lifting up" needed as they cay only close and latch if the ball is in place.

[MOW ED]

:cry: :cry: :cry:


:D :D :D