My (apparently!) ancient trailer hubs had finally lost their grip. :(
On hub dust covers, that is. :P
Managed to lose three of them, on the way from Gainesville to Pensacola, for sailing in the Florida 120. :'(
In order to get back home, I bought and used some Gorilla tape to limp the hubs back home again, with a minimum of lost lubrication.
(Having forgotten there was already a perfectly good roll of duct tape, stored in the boat spares locker of the Irish Pennant.) :P
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It isn't Dumb, if it works!! :D
Ordered some replacement hubs and got the trailer ready for hub replacements.
Hmmm . . . . . Keep having to come to terms with being ¾ of a Century, old. ::)
One of those "coming-to-terms" moments, was unsuccessfully breaking the lug nuts free with the short 4-way lug wrench, that I keep in the trailer spares tool box in the back of the truck. :(
Broke out the longer 4-way lug wrench, I keep inside the truck for changing the truck's tires, on the road.
Still no joy. :( 4-way lug wrench must be defective. :-\
I've had that lug wrench since 1966, and it always worked good, BEFORE!! ;D
Nothing for it, but to go to a big box store and get a length of pipe to go over the 4-way lug wrench and increase the leverage.
FORTY-TWO DOLLARS!!??!?? :o
GEEZE!! >:( I don't want to open a whole Plumbing Contracting Company, guys, I just want a small length of pipe!! >:(
Facing the inevitabilities of aging, (spurred along with visions of being stuck on the side of the road, without any means of breaking the lug nuts free) I swallowed my pride, forked over the money and went home, in a very dark mood. >:(
Expensive solution, but hey, it worked. Notice the gray duct tape on one arm; denotes that it is the arm sized for the trailer lug nuts.
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(Visions of buying longer and longer lengths of pipe, every 5 to 10 years . . . . . . . ) :-X
My hubs arrived and I wasted no time, packing the bearings with grease and installing inner seals and whatnot.
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First hub installed without problems, but the second hub . . . . .
. . . . . BIG Problem. :P
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Discovered I had been very fortunate, to get all the way home. :o The starboard side inner bearing ring had seized and welded itself to the axle and the rollers were obviously burned. :o
I had pulled the hubs after I pulled the trailer out of the water at Big Lagoon State Park, and re-greased the bearings because of the obvious salt-water intrusion.
Guess I hadn't done a good enough job, on the Starboard side. :'(
Now, your average Trailer Sailor might have been greatly distraught, at such a cataclysmic event but to a Brennan, (eternally damn'ed by the gods) it was just Thursday. ::)
I felt truly grateful, to be dealing with this in the carport, instead of by the side of the road . . . . .
. . . . . in the Dark . . . . . . . :(
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . while it's Raining. :(
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Heavily. :'(
Don't laugh, People!! :P
I got PICTURES!! :o
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(Taken about an hour before the Heavens opened up, on me.)
Pulled the bearing cage apart to expose the inner ring and first tried some water pump pliers, to see if it it would rotate at all, or if it was well and truly, seized.
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Short answer: Yes. :P
Perhaps, much more leverage, with my exorbitant new pipe extension and a monkey wrench.
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Uhhh . . . . . no. :P
OK, getting serious now, time to break out the propane torch and heat the inner ring, hoping the heat expansion might loosen it enough to remove it.
Knowing that trailer bearing grease breaks down between 400ºF and 600ºF, I kept the heat on, until I saw the grease start to burn off and carbonize.
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Nope. :-\
Next, decided to break out the Heavy Artillery:
A Milwaukee Sawzall (that Industrial Behemoth that can cut anything, but a straight line) equipped with their Super-Duper "Torch" metal cutting blade.
Didn't even faze that hardened-steel inner ring (I had specifically purchased that bearing, for its Rockwell C hardness rating of 62 HRC), not in the least. >:(
It didn't cut the ring, it didn't even make a groove in it, nay, it made naught but a shiny spot, along one edge. :o
OK, when the Big Guns fail you, simply break out the little guns; in this case, a Dremel tool with a carbide cutting wheel.
And some Patience.
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THAT worked!! :) Kept pounding on it along the length of the axle, with a hammer and cold chisel.
So, of COURSE!! >:( It got hung up right at the end.
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But, as in all things, Perseverance (and a Bigger Hammer!) :P solved all.
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SUCCESS!! ;D
After some filing and cleanup with some coarse Crocus cloth and ready for assembly:
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One thing I like to do on my trailers, is to put a couple of rubber O-rings on the axle shoulder, before installing the hub.
The Theory: Is that the axle shoulder rusts and abrades the inner seal, until it inevitably fails.
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By placing a greased O-ring on that shoulder, no oxygen can get to that part of the shoulder (although it can still rust plenty, behind the shoulder) and the rubber against rubber will eventually wear out, but much more slowly.
Then the second O-ring is pushed up against the inner seal, until it finally wears out. I get a couple of years from each O-ring and several years from an inner seal, doing it this way. 8)
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Finally!! :) Got the 2nd hub installed!! :D
But not without some more Trailer Drama. >:(
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Long time readers of my trailer articles know that I prefer an objective measure for setting the bearing adjustment.
I despise the conventional shade-tree mechanics rule-of-thumb of: "A little past, finger tight".
Finger tight for whom? ???
King Kong, or Edgar Milquetoast?!? ???
Me, first thing in the morning after I've had my Wheaties?!? ???
Or me, when I've got the flu?!? ???
Me at 35, or me at 75?!? ???
I want an objective measure, i.e. a NUMBER!!
I found an objective procedure, that I have been following for over 20 years:
1) Tighten bearing nut very tight on the axle to load the bearings.
2) Loosen, until bearings turn freely.
3) Torque the bearing nut to exactly 50 ft/lb.
4) Using the torque wrench as a gauge, back off the bearing nut 90º counter-clockwise, plus the next open slot in the castellated bearing nut.
Works great, and it is repeatable and reliable.
Until today. :-\
Followed my usual procedure and the hub was wayyyyy too tight!! :o
Uh-oh. :P
After several hours down various Internet rabbit holes, I discovered that axle/spindle/thread size, is a BIG factor in setting the bearings.
The trailer on Urchin was a 3500lb axle using 1"-14 threads, on the axle spindle.
The trailer on the SCAMP uses a 2000 lb axle with 13/16"-20 threads on the axle spindle, designed for light duty boat and utility trailers.
The procedure was fine, just the numbers had to be modified, to accommodate the smaller hardware.
Followed the above procedure, substituting 25 ft/lb for the original 50 ft/lb torque and the hubs and bearings felt perfect. 8)
WHEW!!! ;D
Next chore for the torque wrench was to torque down the lug nuts:
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Uhhhh . . . . how much, exactly? ???
Well, Google is your friend!! :D
Unless it's not. >:(
Went and looked it up:
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Hmmm . . . . that sounds a little high . . . . . ???
Went to a trailer web site and got VERY different values!! :o
My 12" steel wheels SHOULD have been torqued to 50-75 lbs for a light-duty trailer.
DOHHHH!!! :P You don't get to 90-120 ft lbs until you get to 14" tires. (Like I had on Urchin.)
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Here's another trailer web site that only goes down to 13" tires, but it seems like they are at least, in the same ball park.
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Note that their 90 - 120 ft/lb rating, is for 15" tires and NOT 12" tires.
So, what's up with Google? ???
OK, HERE'S something for you to "google": >:(
"AI Hallucination rates"
What it basically says, is that: YOU CAN'T TRUST AI FOR SPECIALIZED KNOWLEDGE!! >:(
BE CAREFUL!! :o
I torqued all the lug nuts to 75 ft/lbs. while also resolving to take all Internet AI advice, with a hefty grain of salt, from here on out.
Finally looked good, though! 8)
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Then it occurred to me: Hey! :) Maybe I've been dealing with over-torqued lug nuts and I don't really need that pipe extension, to break the lug nuts free on the road.
Tried breaking one free, with the 4-way lug wrench.
Nope; I'm Officially Decrepit! :( (The pipe, stays.) ::)
Then it was time to put away all the trailer spares and tools.
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In that box, is everything needed to fix most any trailer failure on the road, including two spare hubs, pre-greased with bearings and seals installed. (Since I have both 1" and 1 1/8" axles between the three trailers.)
Extra lights, light lenses, trailer hardware, grease guns, extra tubes of grease, extra lug nuts, four sets of bearings for both sizes, inner seals and numerous bearing dust covers and Bearing Buddies and EZ-Lube covers, plus cotter pins and washers.
All the tools that I used to maintain this latest episode, I use exclusively from the trailer box.
That way, if I need another specialized tool from the garage, I'd immediately go out and buy a spare of that tool and put it in the box.
Stowed in the truck and with the hydraulic jack lashed down, on top.
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Note the extension pipe tucked away, behind behind the spares case.
All ready, for the next road trip!! ;D
Charles Brennan
You beat the by the side of the road fiasco! So, maybe you weren't damned!!! When those lug nuts get rusty it doesn't hurt to add a little flame. No, not red hot, just good and pancake cooking warm. It expands and breaks some of the bonds and will allow movement. And yeah, I know you shouldn't lub studs but I do in this application. With some PB Blaster. And then clean it all up and go about it. I guess I need to do an exam on mine too. Haven't jacked it up and listened in a bit.
On a different note, it's pouring here. So far, this year has been very wet. I'm due for the new eye thing shortly and that'll put me on the sideline again. I'll be glad though, because I'm tired of looking through one GOOD eye and one foggy one.
I NEVER use the AI results. Not only are they prone to hallucination and other foolishness, but AI is an environmental nightmare. I personally think it should be reserved for, say, solving medical problems.
Noemi
Noemi, Your response:
Quote from: Noemi - Ensenada 20 on Jun 08, 2026, 06:03 PMI personally think it should be reserved for, say, solving medical problems.
Is problematic, to me.
Legal and Medical fraudulent citations as a result of AI Hallucination, is considered a very serious problem in the AI community. So I would NOT want to have AI doing any medical problem diagnosis for me!! :o (Heck! I barely trust the
human practitioners!) >:(
There is so much controversy on AI, (without any real understanding of it) that I feel there is more heat than light, being applied to the subject.
Consider the Ford Model A:
It was marvelous, that you could tool around in it, but you had to be a fairly knowledgeable mechanic to drive one. Dealing with Spark Advance and Double-Clutching was not for everyone.
Our vehicles nowadays, have nowhere near that kind of baggage, in order to operate them and that is my point:
AI (IMHO)
is still in the Model A era of development.I find it amusing, to see all the sudden alarm about AI taking everybody's jobs; it's only been about a HUNDRED YEARS in the making.
The Industrial Revolution was thought to be solely the realm of mechanical labor, replacing skilled artisan labor.
When Electricity was added to the mix, nobody considered the effects of THAT on manufacturing.
When Electricity evolved to Electronics, well, everybody was asleep at the switch for THAT one, too.
Enter computers.
The original postulate:
A computer can solve any problem that can be defined in a finite number of steps.Was widely misunderstood, by EVERYBODY!! ;D
Consider 3 industries impacted by micro-processors:
1) The mechanical adding machine industry should have realized that pocket calculators would wipe them out and adapted their manufacturing processes accordingly.
2) Swiss watchmakers, grinding their precision gears and jeweled movements had NO idea a piece of silicon vibrating 32,767 times a second could replace them at a fraction of the cost. They adapted by turning time pieces into jewelry.
3) Video games couldn't even EXIST, until the advent of the micro-processor so a whole new industry sprang up out of nowhere, incidentally wiping out mechanical pin ball machines, on their way in.
So they ALL should have seen it coming and nobody knew that better than: Women.
Rooms full of female Long-distance phone operators, were displaced in a single decade, by automatic switching systems in the late 50's and early 60's.
Rooms full of women, in Typing Pools in the 50's and 60's hammering away on typewriters, generating Insurance Policy boilerplate with carbon copies, got replaced nearly overnight with the advent of the Word Processor.
Even then, the corporations didn't understand what they really had. They just thought a word processor could crank away all day and they didn't need a whole room of women boiler plate facilitators.
The real thing about a word processor, was that for the first time in history:
Human Labor could be stored and re-used.In the 70's, Binary Tree (B-Tree) logic chains could facilitate simple diagnosis of any problem that could be defined. The part that makes me laugh the most, is that it never ONCE occurred to the white-collar professionals, that THEIR livelihoods and specialized knowledge could ALSO be defined and therefore, automated.
Doctors, Lawyers?!? ???
SURPRISE!! ;D
NOW they have Big Opinions about AI.
Too late.
And for all that fear and panic, AI is barely up to Model A standards, as a direct result of Silicon Valley corporate greed and stupidity. They were too lazy to teach a LLM AI, the philosophy of say, Plato, or Aristotle, or instill ethics into it, or even incorporate Asimov's 3 Laws of Robotics.
Nope!! THESE jerks simply pointed the LLMs at the Internet and said: Learn what you can!! ;D
And THEN they act all surprised, when the AI's start making stuff up and displaying all the worst behaviors of Humanity, on the Internet!! :P
HA HA HA HA!!! ;D
I've read a lot of Science Fiction in my life, so I can generally see where this is all going to go.
Most every example of High-Tech, is balanced by High Touch. Humanity will (eventually) triumph.
1) When the machines got too oppressive, workers threw their wooden shoes, called
Sabot into the gears and gave us the word: "sabotage".
2) Massive textile manufacturing, was balanced by boutique operations, specializing in one-of-a-kind clothing.
3) The first million years of human existence, humans never traveled faster than 20 miles an hour.
All that stress on our evolution requires a balancing mechanism.
For the High-Tech stress of freeway driving, there is the High-Touch coping, of say, sailing!
Sure, a (High-Tech) robot can deliver your food order to your table, but a (High-Touch) human server is still far more pleasant. (Usually!)
When Reality once again rears its head, the AI will be used for all the rote diagnoses and human intervention will be only required for the exception handling, making far better use of human talents.
Exception handling is where I see human productivity ultimately evolving, once the Money Guys figure out that AI's don't buy things; humans do.
Until then, it's going to be a Mess.
One guy's opinion,
Charles Brennan
It wasn't side of the road, but the beginning of attempting a simple brake job. A cheater bar that I could hang off of would not break the lug nuts. I went to the last place that did rotation and asked them to please break and torque. The "mechanic" did so, claimed he did nothing wrong originally, then said he left them loose, hope I make it home. Checked torque when I got home, "loose" was 5 ftlbs. above spec. After that, I never had installation or rotation done any place where they didn't have a window so I could watch them go through the cross tighten and torque process. Additionally, I now never travel away from home base without a cordless impact wrench in the vehicle to break and loosen. And if the boat trailer, a bottle of salt away spray.
yep, have experienced the AI hallucinations, so go to the direct sources below for verification.
As a teenager in the early sixties, I worked at a McDonald's. No inside seating then, just a window, and to take an order you used a pencil to write it on a white paper bag then you added it up in your head as you walked around filling the bag with the food. By the time you got back to the window, you just told the customer the total and the cash register was mechanical, did not add, you punched the total in and deposited the money, all cash, not credit cards back then. The manager quickly learned who on the staff could do that and who could not and you were placed either at the window or in the cook area based on that. I was good at math and always had to work the window but would have preferred the cook work. What a long way we've come from that.
My first real job had to do with the calculations necessary to do the lofting patterns to cut the ends of large supporting pipe between the deck sections on offshore oil and gas platforms. Each joint required a wrap pattern for the diameter, thickness, and intersecting angle so the fitters could use a cutting torch to prep them. Took sometimes a couple of hours a joint with one of those early TI calculators, and a six inch thick Smoleys trig tables book. Now I think you can punch it in and in a second a machine strapped to the pipe can cut it perfectly.
I was hired to manage a manufacturing plant modernization, product stationary woodworking machinery. The transition was from many individual conventional machines with one man operating one machine to DNC mini cells where one man managed a number of DNC machines mainly loading and unloading and inputting the data for the statistical process control. The beef in that era was a lot of people would lose their jobs. Never happened. Costs per unit went down, quality went up, consequently volume went up requiring more people. What happened was the quality of the job went up so higher pay was required including for the squad of electronic maintenance technicians.
The most important point in your post is that the money still has to flow or there is no point. And it will.
In the early iron age when king Midas in Turkey created money the world economy changed. It is still changing but our thinking doesn't change as quickly because we are blinded by what was and is. We feel safe in assuming money will still be around in the future because that is what drives the current economy. We assume so but is that because we just can't conceive a future economy that could potentially replace the current one. I do agree the big data centers are now an environmental problem. Perhaps a mathematical AI will finally solve the fusion problem, and the energy problem and carbon pollution problem could improve dramatically. Whether that provides a solution to species extinction rates and other environmental problems we are facing depends on many other aspects of human behavior. The fog of the future tends to be seen through the eyes of the present.
You seem to think I don't understand change.
I am not as worried about job loss (though some) as I am about the environmental degradation that accompanies the current AI systems. Perhaps this isn't happening in your neck of the woods, Charles, but it's all over the Midwest. Huge data centers (100,000 square feet avg) being dropped in next to neighborhoods, environmental and noise regulations being cut, circumvented, or ignored, enormous amounts of water (~5 MILLION gallons of water PER DAY) being pulled out of aquifers to cool the systems leading to lowering and sometimes draining of the water table. You know - the water human beings must have to live. Electrical companies adding capacity (burning even more fossil fuels, polluting the air, driving more global warming) while relying on existing customers to pay for the upgrades. It's a mess.
Given what "development" of AI is costing us and the planet, the practice of using it to find information that was available elsewhere or for trivial things seems.....blind.
Quote from: Frank B. on Today at 08:00 AMA cheater bar that I could hang off of would not break the lug nuts. I went to the last place that did rotation and asked them to please break and torque. The "mechanic" did so, claimed he did nothing wrong originally, then said he left them loose, hope I make it home. Checked torque when I got home, "loose" was 5 ftlbs. above spec.
I just had to replace the tires on my car. When the mechanic got into my car to drive it into the bay, I asked him to please torque it to the spec of 100 ft-lbs. I was pleased to see them with a torque wrench and not the impact wrench when they tightened the nuts.
Quote from: Frank B. on Today at 08:00 AMThe most important point in your post is that the money still has to flow or there is no point. And it will.
But we also need to take into account the other costs besides money. Else we will have no clean air or water.
AI is already better able to find things on scans (Xray, MRI, CAT) that human beings cannot. Given very specific information (not fed random crap from the internet), a focused AI is helping doctors learn more about their patients. It is looking through existing research (not random crap from the internet) to find trends that may have eluded humans, to try to solve medical puzzles. THIS is what it's good for.