Bearing / trailer repair kit

[disorderly]

Yes Sam..The Lions Den is a bit of an iconic landmark up Cooktown way....

Been there since the 1880's according to this article...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-...sale/100422004

Man, there would have been some good stories of life in FNQ over that time...

Nowadays its a regular brewski stopover for the weekend warriors doing a run up the coast road...

Sam when was your first time up here..?...I always wanted to visit FNQ after hearing childhood stories from my parents about their adventures up here on their honeymoon 55 years ago...its certainly not quite as rugged now as back then but still as nice...

Scott

[Dignity]

Yes Sam..The Lions Den is a bit of an iconic landmark up Cooktown way....

Been there since the 1880's according to this article...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-...sale/100422004

Man, there would have been some good stories of life in FNQ over that time...

Nowadays its a regular brewski stopover for the weekend warriors doing a run up the coast road...

Sam when was your first time up here..?...I always wanted to visit FNQ after hearing childhood stories from my parents about their adventures up here on their honeymoon 55 years ago...its certainly not quite as rugged now as back then but still as nice...

Scott

Scott, early 90's up that way, mostly Bathurst Bay - interesting to sit on the beach facing the water with a coffee in the morning and watch the sun rise off your right shoulder and in the afternoon in the same chair with a cool drink in hand watch it set over your left shoulder. One of my workmates grandfather crash landed up that way and there is now a beach named after him. I missed that trip when they were allowed to install a sign "Ellerton Beach". We even found remnants from the aircraft.

Other places of regular trips was Ninian Bay and Jeannie River.

Usually the biggest problem were the pro crabbers, they'd get in early chewing up the tracks with their big tyres and running you off the track on their way out.

[Fishbone]

A new product which might be of interest to those of you who tow big heavy boats.

I used to tow an Imported American Centre Console – an Angler 2600 ( 26 foot and 3.5 Ton of glass Centre Console) between Brisbane and 1770 to fish out on the reef there and over the years we had several close calls with bearing problems.
We did routine maintenance before each trip and carried spares as well as a full disk and hub kit mounted on the spare wheel on the post next to the winch.
Those long trips were a time of anxious travel and lots of stops along the way to check on the wheels and tyres. The hard lessons learnt towing this big boat long distances made us look around for an easier ways to monitor the state of the bearings while driving.

In October of this year a friend asked me to tow his latest boat, an 8.0m AMM from Brisbane up to Tin Can Bay and back for a weekend of fishing out from the Wide Bay Bar.

He had fitted a set of 4 Sensi WiFi Wheel Hub Caps that give real-time temperature monitoring as you drive along the highway. I was interested to see how they performed on a long trip with a heavy boat.
It was interesting to see the temperature of each set of bearings in real time.

The trip north was uneventful but the trip home on Sunday became very interesting.

Just south of the Steve Irwin Way intersection the speed limit dropped to 80KMH because of road works and the road had very few places to pull over to check on the trailer.
Almost as soon as we entered the 80 speed construction zone one bearing started to get hotter than the other 3. This was a surprise as on the journey north and all the way back until then, the temperatures of the 4 bearings were pretty constant.

It took from there to the Bribie Island turn-off (approx. 19Kms) before I was able to pull over the car and trailer in a safe place to inspect the bearing problem.

By then the rear left hand bearing had almost completely collapse and the temperature had risen from 39 degrees to 160 degrees on that one bearing in only 19 Kilometres.

The wheel hub was hot and you could feel the heat in it and the bearing was showing over 160 Degrees internally, so we pulled off the wheel to see that the outside bearing which was just about collapsed.

Any further travel would have caused a total bearing/wheel failure and serious accident.

We changed the bearing and were able to continue within 30 minutes because we had a decent jack, spares bearings, grease and a battery powered rattle gun (lessons learned from previous trips).

The Sensi Wheel Hub Caps earned their value that day.

I was a little sceptical as to their worth if you have good a maintenance routine and stopped regularly to inspect the trailer but they do add an extra layer of protection by real time monitoring of the internal bearing temperatures. You still need the regular stops and good maintenance but they add a degree of comfort when you have 3.5 ton of boat behind you.

To read the story and see the read-outs snapshots from the iPad screen showing the red alerts as the bearing temperature exceeded the defined temperature settings see the link below.

All data was uploaded and stored on the web.

https://smartertowing.com/wheel-sens...-bad-bearings/

[disorderly]

It sounds like an ad...Do you own the company Fishbone...?

I think it will be a while before I fork out $1500 for some bluetooth bearing buddies...

[Fishbone]

No, I have no financial interest in the company.

Fitting them does not reduce the need for proper maintenance and inspections.

[Lovey80]

I do like the idea of a bearing temp sensor though. Got to be a much cheaper way of doing it that also is 100% waterproof for when you dunk the trailer at the ramp.

[Dignity]

I do like the idea of a bearing temp sensor though. Got to be a much cheaper way of doing it that also is 100% waterproof for when you dunk the trailer at the ramp.

Fit it inside the tyre on the rim as they do with a lot of air pressure sensors in cars.

[BigE]

Still carry spare bearings and tools but about six years ago I installed durahubs best thing ever. Not one failure in six years only inspected them in the first two years and put the same bearings back in they were perfect. Best money I have ever spent on a trailer.
BigE

[NAGG]

Still carry spare bearings and tools but about six years ago I installed durahubs best thing ever. Not one failure in six years only inspected them in the first two years and put the same bearings back in they were perfect. Best money I have ever spent on a trailer.
BigE

Touch wood

All it takes is for one to come off & the bearing will be fried pretty darn quick .

I can say that I've never had a failure while the bearing buddy remained in place ...... 3 when they have come off

I just did a complete rebuild after 4 years & ditto - I could have used the same bearings as well (but changed them - 19,000km is a lot of towing ..... specially getting dunked in salt water) .

Not that my reply is a Durahub vs BB thing ....... both work well - just as long as you maintain them , use quality bearings / oil / grease ...... & they stay on the hub

I'd hate to think that anyone would think that not carrying the gear is the done thing - Luckily with my tray set up .... everything I need is always carried.

Chris