Trailer flats

Rich

Rich

Asshole at large
Joined
Mar 17, 2005
Location
Central PA
So I bought this little ramp contraption last year that was supposedot help in changing a flat on your trailer.

Fortunately, I never had to use it.. until Friday night, coming back from Charlotte. I think the tire got a pinhole leak, because it was at 50psi that morning, and looked fine when I was leaving Charlotte, but it shows that it was driven low on air before it went.

Anyway, the ramp works well, got the flat tire up high enough to get it off, but NOT high enough to let me put the inflated spare tire on. Fortunately, because the train horns need an OBA system, I was able to let the air out of the spare, mounted it, then re-inflated it.

So all in all, I don't know how to rate this thing.. maybe I need to carry a 2x4 to prop up one end? 5/10.

flat1.jpg

flat2.jpg
 
yup same thing happened when i used some wood blocks to do that.. It was 10x easier (and faster) to just pull the small jack out and slide it under the axle tube.. I carry a small floor jack, but have used the trucks crank up jack also..
 
We always just pull the high lifts off the jeeps and go to it. Just put it under the frame in front of the wheel wheel or behind depending on which tire. I'd rather use something different, but its alot better than a truck crank up jack. We had a tire go out on a trail pull two car one time on I26 and had fun using two highlifts...it became kinda dangerous when we were trying to let the trail back down :eek:
 
I have always wondered how well the ramp would work. I pretty much just use the highlift off the trail rig. Not to mention the OBA. My passenger was shocked when I got a trailer flat and 10 minutes later we were back on the road thanks to air tools and a highlift. I am sure the ramp is safer, but my concern was getting an inflated spare back on without any load on it. Guess that my concerns weren't unfounded.
 
Rich,
I don't like those things at all and I will tell you why...
Lets say you have a trailer with two 5000 lb axles and you are at 10,000 loaded on the trailer. You have 2500 lb on each tire and side of axle, cool you are at the max but its built to take maybe 1.5 X normal to fail. When you load the one tire to lift that side of the trailer you will take the load from 2500 lb to 5000 lb and thats 2 x to load the axle was made to carry plus you are loading it at a angle to get the height you need.
Bad things happen, you can and will bend axles I have seen it happen, overload the other tire that is already hot from carrying the load because of the flat and blow it I watched that happen, a tire with a load of 2500 and a max of 2900 going to a load of 5000 and it blows like a shotgun blast. I was the only one there with my hands on my ears telling them it would do it and as they pulled the camper up it went with three people jumping in the road and about getting run over, not a good thing.
I have found that a good high lift jack on lighter loads or a 10- 20 ton bottle jack for 30-50$ works best, and is safe, BTW if you go to Dexter's site they say never to use a jack on the axle tube and I remember reading a warning about lift from the frame only not on the tire ramps like you have but I was not able to find it in the info today, I will keep looking, it had to do with loading like I talk about if I remember.
BTW when the trailer is not loaded and I need to work on it and change barrings or a tire, not much load on the axle at all I use wood to do what that thing does, but there is no way it will over load the tire or axle.
Jon
 
If you put the jack under where the leaf springs attach there isn't any difference (on leaf-sprung trailers of course). I'd use a floor jack or something with a really wide base and saddle to make sure it won't topple over.
 
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