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85diplomat
10-29-2003, 10:11 PM
Left my house on my way to N.H. to do some fishing. Got 8/10ths of a mile from my house, turned on to the main street, and Bamm!!!! I see one of my tires on the trailer rolling up the yard beside me!! Seconds later I see the other chase it !I'm sitting in the middle of the road with my boat on the ground and no wheels!!
I haul it off the street dragging the trailer. I have to send one of my passengers back with my truck to get my floor jack! We then rehook up the trailer and jack up the middle of the back of the trailer and roll it on the jack into a drycleaner's parking lot and back it into a spot. It is 2:00. I run down to our local boat dealer and try to buy a new axle. He needs 12 different measurements and the gross weight of the boat to get me the right one. He tells me to get the info and he might be able to help. It's 3:00 and he closes at 4:00.
After some negotiation with the wife I purchase a new trailer and off I go. Following the advice of one of the salesmen at the dealers I remove the crank on the old trailer, and disconnect the new one from the truck. At this point we had drawn a crowd. We wedged the new trailer over the old one and attached the crank strap. We cranked the new trailer under the boat over the old one. This only took 15 min. We then swapped plates( slightly illegal) and pulled the boat back to the house. We only had to get rid of the old trailer and wereas I was still sweating from spending $1300 on a new trailer I refused to call a tow truck. So we attached it to the tow hitch and walked it home 8/10ths of a mile on the jack!!! We then repacked everything and left for our trip. (7:00)
After that and spending another 2 hrs tweaking the trailer at the ramp the next day we still didnt catch any fish! Wouldn't you have thought I had earned that if just for the perseverance!!!
Well the bright side is not one scratch on the boat.

17' checkmate "Cheap Thrills"

Chris
10-29-2003, 10:26 PM
Nope...that hasn't happened to me! http://www.checkmate-boats.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

How did you get the boat off one trailer and on to the other?

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F150GT
10-29-2003, 10:29 PM
Thats a greate sales story for periodic trailer maintnance, one of the most overlooked peies of equipment.
I like how you swaped trailers, I wouldnt have thought of that.

Bruce
10-29-2003, 10:49 PM
YIKES !!!!!, Good thing it was only the tires that passed you. I can remember as a kid driving to the cottage we would joke that if the boat passed us we were in trouble.

Glad to hear nobody was hurt and that the boat survived the misfortune. Good thing it happened on the side street versus the highway going 55/60 mph.

It's something that we all should take notice of but it's quite conceivable that something of this nature could go undetected.

175checkmate
10-30-2003, 10:08 AM
Glad to hear you guys are ok and the boat is fine. Great job switching trailers.

http://www.checkmate-boats.com/images/avatars/GusAvatar2.jpg


1975 Checkmate Tri-mate 2, 2.4 200+ / Sky jacker 6" plate / 25p Laser 2 prop

MrWick
10-30-2003, 02:08 PM
Did the hubs come off the trailer or did both axle shafts break off?I can't imagine what would have happened if it had been out on the highway.Glad everyone is ok and the boat made it ok also.Anything I can look at on my old trailer that you discovered after your accident.......

85diplomat
10-30-2003, 08:26 PM
It was really a blessing that we never made it to the highway! And yes both sides of the axles broke off. The trailer is the one that came with the boat... in 1985. We had upgraded the hubs and wheels, new jack,new winch, and we thought we were in good shape. Live and learn(fortunatly in that order).

17' checkmate "Cheap Thrills"

tpondal
11-02-2003, 06:41 PM
You certainly deserved to catch some fish!! Gald noone was hurt. In high school I had a 65 Datsun Pickup. Was driving this truck in Laconia NH one winter day and had the right front wheel come off (wheel bearings failed). Since I was in town 25 - 30 mph the truck simply slid into a snow bank, noone was hurt. I learned a few PM tips with that truck!

175checkmate
11-02-2003, 07:11 PM
Had a problem like this with my trailer, just got back form the lake with the mate. About 2 days later I was giving the trailer a look over and I noticed that the right tire had a bit of a lean to it. So being the "I just have to know" type of guy I went and had a look. What I found was the nut that holds the bearings in. That was all that was left. No bearings or races, gone. To this day I still have to clue as to how it stayed on. So after many trips to napa to get the right bearings and races I installed new bearings and all hardware on both sides.

http://www.checkmate-boats.com/images/avatars/GusAvatar2.jpg


1975 Checkmate Tri-mate 2, 2.4 200+ / Sky jacker 6" plate / 25p Laser 2 prop