Earlier this year near Benson, AZ we had a wheel come off the trailer.  Not a tire, the whole wheel.  Turns out a bearing failed and caused the metal that connects the axle to the wheel assembly heated up and broke off.  We spent 3 days in a motel while a repair shop got the axle repaired.

Now, barely 2 months later the other wheel on the brand new axle did the same thing!  We were driving down the freeway with not a care when a motorist pulled alongside and gestured at us.  Jeff looked in the rearview mirror just in time to see the wheel separate from the trailer and roll along the road.  We pulled to the shoulder and braked and I got to watch the wheel pass us up and roll into the bushes at the side of the road.  YIPES!

From the freeway we couldn’t see anything but cornfields, trees and an occasional farmhouse, but luckily we were on an exit with a town just on the other side of the freeway.  The tow truck driver called the repair shop in that little town of Lewisburg, OH and was told they could do the repairs for us.  So, we chained up the dangling axle again and limped through town to the repair shop.  It’s a very busy shop and we had to park on the street, luckily it wasn’t a busy street!

We found a nearby motel that wouldn’t break the bank and Moon at the shop did a great job of calling around to find a new (another new!) axle that could be ready the next day.  Several places gave him an estimate of 2 weeks to get a new axle!  This place, about 90 minutes away, cut one down and had it ready the next day and we drove up to get it.  Two days at the motel and we were back on the road!

The place that cut down the axle for us gave us the most probably explanation of why we had this happen twice.  Each of our two axles is rated at 5,200 lbs.  Our trailer, especially loaded with all our belongings, is right at the max that the two axles can handle.  Our new axle is rated at 6,000 lbs and is a heavier duty axle, so hopefully this won’t happen again.

The folks at the motel were very friendly and pleasant, and the repair shop did a fabulous job of getting us fixed asap!

But, we had to eliminate our stop in Canton, OH to see the NFL Hall of Fame Museum in order to get back on schedule and not forfeit deposits at 3 different RV parks.  But, we may get back this way again later.

Here are pictures of the damaged axle: