Bad day with a utility trailer

[pizzaman09]

Picked up a few too many large rocks at the local landscaping place over the weekend.  Taking it careful home at 25 mph on the back roads, it felt like a tire blew on the trailer, I looked in the mirror and saw a wheel bouncing into the weeds.  Wheel broke off the axle at the factory weld.

 

Drug the trailer about 40ft when it happened.

 

Examination of the fatigue crack showed the axle had been cracked about 3/8 of the way around the weld before we started the day as the crack was rusty.  

 

Luckily some friends lived nearby with a heavy duty trailer and a coworker happened to come up the road shortly after it all happened and offered his tractor with forks.

 

 

We wheeled the trailer on one wheel 500ft up the road to a friend of a friend of the guy that lent us the tractor.

 

Guy was kind enough to let us leave things in his driveway for while so we could run and get all the welding equipment to put the wheel back on.  

 

Trailer was safely mounted on jack stands for the repair.

 

Ended up getting everything home safely, took the help of several good friends and 6 hours for what should have been a 30 minute cruise home.  

 

Rember, don't overload your equipment.

 

[Pete M]

and always inspect your equipment on a regular basis.  

 

I know it was a big hassle, but I feel you still got lucky.  if it was already cracking, it could have given way at faster speeds someday.

[pizzaman09]

19 hours ago, Pete M said:

and always inspect your equipment on a regular basis.  

 

I know it was a big hassle, but I feel you still got lucky.  if it was already cracking, it could have given way at faster speeds someday.

Indeed, I'm super happy that it happened when it did because it was a borrowed trailer from my  parents, I'd hate for the problem to have happened to them.

[NHMJXJ]

That's A LOT of weight.