Flat

I had my first flat on the TM this weekend. I crossed a cattle guard and felt 4 or 5 quick tugs. Then it seemed I needed more power to keep up the speed. About then I smell something hot. The TV guages all looked fine and I saw a white cloud of smoke billowing from the driver side wheels. Turns out the steel belt came off about 3/4 of the way around. It slapped my plumbing and pulverized the grey water pipe and broke the grey tank where the pipe comes out. That explained the series of quick jerks. Then the long rubber strip wrapped around the axle and slid the tire till I saw the smoke.

On the good side, the 3326 with dual axle has an advantage that I could back up onto the leveling blocks to raise the tire. No jack needed.

Turns out Goodyear is on strike and Marithon tires are scarce.... My TM was manufactured Sept 03, so the tires are at least 3 years old. Rubber tread looks like new. Pressure was set at 50# before the trip.

[B_and_D]

Sounds grim....so you have to replace the grey water tank and the line to the main outlet? I keep thinking that we should cover our plumbing back there with a metal cage. There is a small hard mudflap under that side only, I'm not sure who put it on, but I don't think it would do the trick if we had the same kind of a blowout that we had a couple of years ago. That would be one way to really ruin your vacation. You wouldn't even be able to use the water system at all with that kind of damage?

It almost sounds like maybe the cattle guard had some loose bars on it sticking up that may have injured the tire? Years ago I drove my '63 Olds through a creek bed in Nisene Marks State Park here in Aptos and there was a grate in the creekbed to help give you traction (you haven't been able to drive through that creek in 20 years plus now). After DH (who was my boyfriend then) and I went hiking, we started driving out back to town and ran out of gas, although I had at least a quarter tank when I drove in. Turns out the grate got flipped up somehow and punctured my gas tank as I drove over it. We got to do a bit more hiking than we'd planned and a couple of days later DH (who was DB then) found someone to weld the hole in the gas tank .

I'm sorry to hear about the problems, normally the damage isn't as severe.

As far as the Marathon tire seperating, this is typical of the Marathon. I have had nothing but head aches over the years when I had Marathons on my rigs.

Good luck on all the repairs.

Jack

[Bill]

Oh, Lord, Bob, I'm sorry to hear that. As I mentioned in another thread a month ago or so, I put mudflaps on my TM recently - heavy wide rubber ones that hang down almost to the pavement - in hopes that when this happens to me, they will protect the plumbing. Dunno if it will work - but it couldn't hurt!

Jack - if you have given up on Marathons, please remind us of what you use now?

Bill

Regarding a steel cage, the rubber strip is going to have a whole lot of energy when it slaps the plumbing/cage. I think an expanded steel cage would be crushed as well. Perhaps a heavy mud flap would help as it would be impacted further from the plumbing.

I was lucky that the tread wrapped around the axle and stopped the tire from turning, else I would surely have had a lot more damage to the underside of the TM as well as the wheel well.

Discount tire has no Marathons in Arizona due to the strike. So I am putting on a Carlisle steel belt with the same ratings.

My tire was dated 2003 -- same as the manufacturing year of the TM, so the tire was fresh when installed. I check tire temperatures on the road and these were running cool (for Arizona) -- about 95 to 105 degrees F. The tire was not hot when I replaced it. I have seen 135 and 150 degrees F. FYI, Right after having my wheel bearings greased, I read 175 degrees F on one axle while the others were more like 130 degrees F. That wheel cooled down as I continued on. The trip was to the National TM Jamboree in Colorado Springs last summer. I guess they set the bearing too tight.

Regarding the tank, Camping World thinks the tank needs to be replaced. I intend to weld it. Now to find a plastic welder... The damage is confined to the face of the tank and surrounding the hole where the pipe was pulled out. A plate of plastic on this surface should suffice.

[Bill]

Bob -

I'm sure you checked, but when the tread wrapped around the axle, did it do any damage to the exposed wires leading to the brake magnets? On mine, anyway, these wires are simply taped to the axle.

In my experiences (high-speed failures, as opposed to your low-speed failure), the tread peeled off in chunks, which were thrown in random directions. I'm hoping that the mudflap will deflect the chunks, rather than absorbing their energy and stopping them. With any luck, they will also spread out the impact energy, reducing point loads on the plastic plumbing. Fingers crossed.

Bill

Bill,
The two black wires to the brakes were wrapped around the axle. Both were pulled out at the far end and about 3 feet long. It looked like they were pulled out of a twistie wire nut as both were stripped back and the same length. I think I can rerun them back where they came from. The wires themselves were not damaged.

I bought a plastic welder at Harbor Freight today for $30. Now I have to find some matching plastic to do the repair with. Turns out you can ID plastic pretty well by its color. The tank is black and I am wondering if it is the same stuff as sewer pipe.

for those interested in my modification....i finally discovered how to post a photo (quantum physics was easier )....if you highlight FRAME and then highlight my second entry ( electric jack mod .bill s ) you will see my photo...
the photo is pretty clear ..i'm happy to answer any ???
thanks bill s.

[Bill]

Bill S -

I've merged your posts so the photo shows up where it belongs. I know you are frustrated, but attaching photos really isn't hard. I'm not sure why you are having so much trouble, but I suspect it is because your photo file size is HUGE. That one photo is about 350KB, which is more than a third of your total allocation. Before you try to post any more, you really need to learn how to shrink your photos to something on the order of 20KB to 50KB. Doug W provided some instructions in the "Electric jack" thread, or you can read about it in more detail in the Photo tutorial in the TM Reference Library (TM Info You Won't Find Anywhere Else).

Alternatively, if you don't want to shrink them, you can post them at full size, right out of the camera, at the TMPhotos.org web site - there is also a tutorial for this in the Reference Library.

By the way, that is a nice mod you made for the jack stand.

Bill
(moderator)

[commodor47]

Originally Posted by BobRederick

I had my first flat on the TM this weekend. I crossed a cattle guard . . .

Sorry to hear about your tire misfortune and resulting damage to the holding tank and piping. Sometimes it doesn't take much to create a tire problem. In my case a flat tire resulted from a new entrance into a prospective CG. The entrance was covered with large trap rock designed to fill a deep shoulder drop off (which was not obvious). As I turned off the road onto the shoulder the TV and TM dropped down 2 to 3 inches (quickly) and the curb side tire caught the corner of a stone . . . apparently with enough force to tear away part of the tread, exposing some of the steel belt. Here is a link to a picture shows that the "point" of impact (just below the 15 cm rule).

http://picasaweb.google.com/commodor...tTireFeb52006#

I am very thankful something similar didn't happen while traveling an interstate (due to a road hazard).