Wheel well modification

[B_and_D]

The tires were old. I kind of suspected that they were the original tires, and I feel dumb for not having checked into their age and replacing them already. I know about the 3 or 4 number date code, but every time I looked for one on the tires I couldn't find it. The tire installer said that they were 8 years old (and from what I understand that is too old for trailer tires). They had very little wear on them and looked like they were in good shape.

DH says they were Firestones. The trailer was not overloaded, tanks were empty except for the propane, heavy stuff always goes in the truck.

I was driving under 60 mph, felt some minor bumping from the rear, and immediately pulled over, braking lightly. We got out fast enough to watch the tire deflate. No problems handling the trailer as the tire didn't deflate until we stopped! The outer tread was completely separated from the rest of the tire.

We sure felt safer driving the rest of the way home on our new tires!

[G-V_Driver]

We experienced a blowout while northbound on Route 24 north of Buena Vista, Colorado on Friday the 13th. We were just north of Twin Lakes road, to those familiar with the area. We had not performed the wheel-well modification to our trailer (a used 1998 3124KS) because I had concluded (perhaps incorrectly) from the posts to this site that the blow-out problem had been resolved by switching to Goodyear Marathon tires. I checked (or thought I checked) both tires when we bought the trailer last year to be sure the tires were Marathon's, but found that the off-side tire was something else after the blowout. Still don't know how that could have happened, but have reached the age that I can attribute such inexplicable events to senior-itis rather than dumb-***.

The wheel well damage was limited to the forward vertical metal piece, and was (or would have been) fairly easy to repair if we hadn't traded it in the next day. The rest of the story is that the departing tread from the blown-out tire totally field-stripped the external components of the plumbing system. Both the grey water and black water valves and piping were totally gone. Only the grey water tank (which I noted is black, causing me to wonder if it should be called it a black grey-water tank?) and a round gaping hole in the floor (directly under the terlit) remained.

I had checked the air pressure in the spare tire a couple of times over the past couple of months, and since it didn't change I didn't check it again immediately before the last trip. Bad decision, or just bad luck. It didn't really matter since I couldn't jack the trailer by myself anyway (and have since bought a 6 ton bottle jack from Wally that will always be in the TV) and I advised the the guy who came to assist to bring an air tank with him. With his help we got going and immediately diverted to Colorado Springs. If the other tire blew on the way in, my only hope was that it would happen close enough to a cliff that I could eliminate further anguish. "Well, officer, I'm not sure how it got loose from the W/D hitch and the safety chains and ended up at the bottom of this canyon, but . . ."

The 2003 we traded for has rounded wheel wells and Goodyear tires. Hope our adventures are over.

Wayne

[B_and_D]

What a drag! I feel your pain.

We managed to jack ours up with a small bottle jack, a lid off a cooler that we found on the roadside, a jack stand, our yellow lego blocks, some other boards we had, the tongue crank, and some rocks that we found. When our AAA expires in January I believe that we will be switching to a roadside assistance plan that covers both the TM and our vehicles.

I guess if you have the scissor jacks that they would be helpful in jacking the trailer up? We only have the fold-down type. We thought about buying some scissor jacks if they could be used for actually raising the trailer in the event that this happens again.

I wonder if there would be a way to rig up something to cover the pipes and prevent damage to that area in the event of a blowout?

[B_and_D]

I'm posting this as a reminder to all the new board members who have recently purchased older TM's (with the square wheel wells) that there is an easy modification you can make to help lessen damage to your trailer if you have a blow-out.

The link with the retrofit instructions is still active, click on the "Trailblazers" box.

Happy Camping, everyone!

Since I have the TM jacked up for changing the brakes and tires I figured it would be a good time to do the wheel well modification. I bought the stuff at Home Depot and will do the mod in the morning. Hope it's as easy as it sounds!

[B_and_D]

It took us two days over the weekend, mostly because we had to let the foam dry and then put in some more, and then cut the excess off with a knife when it dried. The worst thing to work with is the foam, it expands and goes all over the place. We stuffed some styrofoam pieces we had inside the wheelwells to take up some space so it didn't have to be all foam. I recall having to tuck some of the sheetmetal under the frame, too. Get lots of newspapers or a tarp so the foam doesn't stick to the tires or the ground. Gloves would probably help, too; the foam is hard to get off of your hands.

It's not a bad project, not too time consuming; using the pop riverter for the first time was interesting. We made sure to look at the inside of the TM where the rivets are going to go through the sheetmetal so we didn't puncture something else, like an electrical line, etc.

Let us know how it comes out.

Well, I'm a day late on starting since something of higher priority came up yesterday - but it's only 2 PM and the sheet metal is all in and the foam is curing. It does make a mess, doesn't it? I have card board and plastic down to keep it off the patio and I wore Nitrile gloves to keep it off my hands. All in all, not a bad project, except I didn't heed the advise to buy three cans of foam so I'll need to make a trip to Home Depot.

[RickNewcomb]

The link below has photos of my wheel well modification:

http://home.comcast.net/~trailmanor/whlwell.htm

I know this is an old thread but a few of us still have older style square wheel wells on our TMs and I knew this would be on the top of my list of upgrades. I also did the 2" lift and went from 13" to 14" tires. My wheel well mod is a little different from others I have read about on this forum, luckily a buddy of mine has a metal fabrication shop and used to build custom trailers and the easiest solution to him was to simply bend a piece of sheet metal to turn the right angle wheel well corners into 45's and riveting them into place. It should serve the same purpose as the rounded mod but was easier and he used a heavier sheet of metal so that the corners don't need to be filled with foam, it took him about an hour to do both sides, see pics. I also included a pic of the spacer for the lift, basic 2" square tubing, but he capped it. Tows great and a load off my mind.

[Bill]

I like it! Now if a tire tread peels off, it is less likely to jam up in a corner of the wheel well, and then blast through the top into the TM interior. Nice work on the lift, as well. We all need friends like yours ... !

Bill