Car Trailer
Various notes on the car-trailer, and some issues we've had with it...
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Here's the current car-trailer, purchased after we lost the use of our
previous one (which is probably a good thing, as the old trailer was very
ordinary; hard to tow, bad brakes, heavy). The 'new' trailer is a
break-back type (the platform pivots backwards just in front of the leading
axle), has a reasonable winch, a set of good tyres, lights that work (most of
the time) and reasonable brakes (see below). One of these days we'll install some multi-voltage LED lights (because it's annoying, especially when you forget, changing bulbs to cater for the 24v truck and everything else on 12v), and give the thing a much-needed paint. |
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Trailer tyre that blew coming back from Hyden in 2004. The steel belt
managed to wrap itself around the axle and rip off the brake line, so even after
replacing the tyre, there were still no brakes on the trailer. Thanks go to the passing motorist who told us the tyre had blown. There are advantages and disadvantages to towing the car behind a truck. One of the advantages is that the trailer will always follow the truck; none of this swaying nonsense around corners heading downhill. One disadvantage is that tyres can blow without us being any the wiser... |
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Talking about brakes (or lack there-of), the car-trailer brakes had upped and
died whilst recently transporting a 4wd up to a mate's farm. Now a
car-trailer doesn't have a make or model number, however the parts must have
been based on something, in this case a Holden HR. Nowadays you can't walk
into some auto-parts stores and expect the staff to have any knowledge of
automotive history. This was certainly the case when I went looking for
some HR brake shoes. "Is that a Commodore?" - "It's a Holden
HR and that's all it is." Anyway, the guys down at my local Repco store
seemed to understand what I wanted (said he'd actually owned a couple of HRs;
I'm more of a HQ man myself) and a few trips later I had a couple of new wheel
cylinders, a set of brake shoes, and some Dot4 brake fluid. During the
rebuild it turned out that the shoe retaining pins had disappeared and the
springs were stretched, so some retro-fitting had to be performed.
Anyways, it's all back together and seems to work perfectly.
A. Wheel bearing and cap. B. Wheel cylinder. C. Shoe retaining pins and springs. D. Shoe retaining springs. E. Brake shoes. F. Wheel studs. G - Brake shoe adjuster. |
