1000 miles and three blown tires... OMG this sucks!

[Brutus]

With all the blowouts on one side plus a much hotter hub on that side, that seems to point to a bearing. Have you given that hub a few extra squirts of grease? Maybe that would move things around in there and help get you home. I'd probably bite the bullet and service that bearing. If the hub temp lowers, you've identified and fixed you're immediate issue and reduced the chances of another blowout on this trip. If not, at least that possibility gets (presumably) eliminated as the cause of the heat. Curious to hear others' thoughts. Again sorry to hear about your woes, but at least you're gathering valuable data points that should help you get to the solution.

EDIT. Saw Dave's post above. Good point about the sunny side vs shaded side. Tough call on the bearing. Let us know how you play it.

[ShrimpBurrito]

A surefire way to eliminate the sun factor is to travel when the sun isn't shining. After making sure the tire pressures are adequate and roughly the same, get on the road before sunrise one morning, travel on the highway for 30-60 min, and then feel both the tires and hubs. If one side is still significantly hotter than the other, you know you have a hardware issue. Bad bearings, bad tires, riding brakes, significantly overweight trailer, etc.

One thing is for sure -- you'll enjoy a nice sunrise.

I promise you things will get much easier once you get some of this stuff smoothed out and become comfortable with knowing when things are great and when you need to stop and address something.

Dave

[luvmymanor1]

Originally Posted by ShrimpBurrito

One tire can be significantly hotter than the other if it's in direct sun, when you're on the road or in a parking lot. I think the hubs are more resistant to significant temp differentials with sunlight, but I could be wrong.

This is where a temp/pressure tire monitor comes into play. You start to quantitatively identify what good/bad temps and pressures are so you know when you're safe and when you have a potential problem.

If you are confident in your bearing job, and you are certain you seated the bearings and then backed off on the nut, I don't think I would pull the bearings. With 92 degree temps, those tires are going to be very warm, especially in the afternoon when the sun has had a chance to heat up the road surface.

I'm also not sure how helpful stopping every 2.5 hrs is. My guess is you'd probably have to sit for at least an hour in 92 degree ambient temps to get appreciable cooling, if you park in the shade, and then they're going to heat right back up again after 20 min on the road. But I could be wrong.

Dave

I'm very confident in my bearing job as I have done them befor. i feel i do know what to look for when inspecting them... in fact I brought it to the auto parts store with me when i removed them and was going to replace them becouse its one of those "you might as well just replace it"... however when I got to the parts store the mechanic there said those bearings look real good and I agreed. said no need to change them. now that does not mean nothing happened to them during the three blow outs that occured. in fact more than likely something would happen at this moment when the rim hit the ground.

You are absolutly right about the time it took to cool the bearing down. about an hour in the shade and I'm sure that it heats up quickly but expansion/contraction is a good thing rather than constant expantion for extended periods of time on metal parts. People dont realize how much expantion occurs at temp. that alone puts tremendouse stress. The bearings however have play for this very reason though. Anyway, I purchased a small sized greece gun and loaded it with some good marine greece so we shall see.

[luvmymanor1]

Originally Posted by ShrimpBurrito

A surefire way to eliminate the sun factor is to travel when the sun isn't shining. After making sure the tire pressures are adequate and roughly the same, get on the road before sunrise one morning, travel on the highway for 30-60 min, and then feel both the tires and hubs. If one side is still significantly hotter than the other, you know you have a hardware issue. Bad bearings, bad tires, riding brakes, significantly overweight trailer, etc.

One thing is for sure -- you'll enjoy a nice sunrise.

I promise you things will get much easier once you get some of this stuff smoothed out and become comfortable with knowing when things are great and when you need to stop and address something.

Dave

I wouldnt say that they are significantly higher but enough to notice the diff. I think you're onto something with the riding breaks. I put breaks on and I may have tightened the fly wheel too much. i will get under there and back it off a few clicks and see whet happens. next leg is in three days so there is some down time to get things done.

I also saved all of the dexter parts distributors on our route, just in case something desides to go haywire on me.

[Brutus]

Hey Dave,
I'll be putting on my 15'' tires soon (that are sitting in the garage ready to go). Might as well check for brake pad rub as well. To check for riding brakes, is it as simple as jacking up the wheel, turning by hand, and feeling for resistance and listening for a rubbing noise?

[luvmymanor1]

Originally Posted by Brutus

Hey Dave,
I'll be putting on my 15'' tires soon (that are sitting in the garage ready to go). Might as well check for brake pad rub as well. To check for riding brakes, is it as simple as jacking up the wheel, turning by hand, and feeling for resistance and listening for a rubbing noise?

\

jack the wheels up off the ground, get to the back side of the drum. there is a plastic plug on the bottome. remove it. then take a long flat screw driver and turn the fly wheel you see the direction you want to go... right to tighten and left to loosten. then turn the wheel. it should make one revolution and come to a stop. then you are good... the more I think about it the more I think its not the breaks in my case as we did 1600 miles any rub would be fine by now and it was never that tight to hear so.

[Brutus]

Originally Posted by luvmymanor1

\

jack the wheels up off the ground, get to the back side of the drum. there is a plastic plug on the bottome. remove it. then take a long flat screw driver and turn the fly wheel you see the direction you want to go... right to tighten and left to loosten. then turn the wheel. it should make one revolution and come to a stop. then you are good... the more I think about it the more I think its not the breaks in my case as we did 1600 miles any rub would be fine by now and it was never that tight to hear so.

Sounds good.
Thanks for the procedure!
Pat

My 14 inch Marathons held up just fine while towing in 100+ degree weather, at 65 mph, with around 3,380 pounds on the TM axle...

until about 45 minutes after hitting a pot hole.

I hate pot holes more than anyone hates Marathons.

[luvmymanor1]

Originally Posted by PopBeavers

My 14 inch Marathons held up just fine while towing in 100+ degree weather, at 65 mph, with around 3,380 pounds on the TM axle...

until about 45 minutes after hitting a pot hole.

I hate pot holes more than anyone hates Marathons.

are you saying that the pot hole alone caused the blow out or the combination of the pot hole and the hot temps/weight?

Originally Posted by luvmymanor1

are you saying that the pot hole alone caused the blow out or the combination of the pot hole and the hot temps/weight?

It is my opinion/theory that the combination of towing the TM at it's maximum rated capacity, my wife towing at 65 to 70 instead of my usual 55 to 60, the high air temperature, the higher road surface temperature because it was in the late afternoon, and the pothole that felt like it was at least an inch deep.

I do know that the tires were inflated to 55 psi when we left home and 1.5 hours later when we stopped for root beer floats I felt the tires and hubs with my hand they "felt" OK and both sides felt the same. I also felt the tires on the truck with similar results.

The blow out occurred 1 hour after the root beer floats were gone about 1.5 hours after the stop.

It is difficult to pinpoint the primary cause of the blow out. I think that all of the mentioned factors contributed to the failure. I think the pot hole is waht did us in. I suspect it caused a bubble to form in the sidewall, but I do not know that for sure. In the future, any time I hit a significant pot hold I will soon after that stop to inspect the tires as a safety precaution.

The Marathons came with the TM when we bought it new. The TM was 3 years old. I never looked to see how old the Marathons were.

I heard a pop while my wife was driving. She yelled (panic), because she had no idea what it was. There was no feeling that there was a problem. It was towing just the same, probably because of the size of the TV, our 1500HD truck. I knew what the pop was. I told her to pull over to the side as quickly and as safely as possible and not ask why, just do it.

If the radio had been on I doubt that we would have heard the pop and would have gone a long way until we knew anything about it. Between the pop and the stop was less than 1/4 mile.

Curb side, not street side. No damage to the plumbing.

I learned that I can swap in the spare in less than 20 minutes using the two corner jacks on the TM.