Here it is coming out of the yard and onto my trailer.
On the way back, I dropped down to Waverly to get a rear door that was on craigslist. As I was going thru Delano from Waverly, a state patrol commercial vehicle inspector pulled me over. He wanted to know who the company was that I was working for, who the HHR belonged to, etc. I told him it was all privately owned, there was no commercial usage. I showed him the copy of the title transfer for the HHR and the trailer. He sounded genuinely disappointed that he couldn't right me a pile of tickets for not having a state inspection sticker on my truck and trailer !!
After that, I followed 12 into 394 to I94 east and across to 35W north to go to Hwy 36. Just after I crossed the river bridge by the U, I felt a strange vibration and then the truck jolted back and forth from side to side a couple times. I looked in the mirror and the trailer was swaying side to side and just then the left rear tire/wheel came off and was rolling along beside me at 62 mph !!! I started slowing down and watching the tire. I was in the far right lane and it rolled across the other 3 lanes and into the median. I was relieved to see a guard rail that would prevent it from going into the southbound traffic and hitting someone head-on. When we were down to about 45, it hit a huge concrete pillar and REVERSED direction in a heartbeat, arched 20 feet in the air, crossing over the guard rail and landing in the southbound lanes where it bounced a few more times and came to rest straddling the white line dividing the 2 left lanes. I was out of the truck and crossed 4 lanes of traffic in a flash, waited for the cars to quit veering around it and got it out of the road. The lug holes were trashed from 4 of the 5 nuts working loose. All the studs finally broke off and that's what I saw flying out when I looked in my mirror. The drum was hanging about an inch above the raod surface, so I started going down the shoulder at 20 mph and after I didn't hear it scrapping or leaving a shower of sparks, I gradually increased the speed to the minimum 40 and drove the 16 miles home on 3 wheels. It would touch on some bumps and all right hand turns but it did very little damage.
Once I had the trailer in my shop, I ran down to Ace trailer in Hastings for a new drum/hub assembly and wheel. He had just sold the 4 drums he had last Friday but came up with a used one that looked like new and GAVE it to me. I bought a wheel and had him remove my tire from the junk wheel and mount it on the new one. He charged me $58 for all that along with 5 new lug nuts !! The wheel is a modular and doesn't match the other spoke wheels, but I was/am planning to put aluminum wheels on it at some point anyway.
On the way back up Manning from Hastings, I saw 2 birds in a tree ahead and having the camera with, I was able to get some pics of them.
All in all, it wasn't a bad day. The trailer debackle could've been much worse and seeing the eagles on the way home helped my mood a little.
bowtie said
Feb 14, 2012
Lots of good luck on your side considering all the bad that was thrown at you. As a truck driver you knew what to do/say to not get tagged, all that driving gave you the experience to deal with the trailering issue, and your mechanical skills fixed that. Not too shabby!
SShink said
Feb 14, 2012
Scary stuff Mitch. I'm just glad you are o.k. after all that.
Chris R said
Feb 14, 2012
Damn, thats a story for sure. Glad you came out of it fairly unscathed.
On a different note. Since when does the DOT care about a pickup truck and car trailer? Thats the most stupidest thing I have ever heard, your under the GVW that those guys should legally care about. Hell, if thats how they like to play thier games, they would have a field day with us when we caravan to the Rock for a day at the track. What a bunch of BS.
67ss said
Feb 14, 2012
I hate to admit but I am flying under the radar with my truck and horse trailer. I think I better look into this to see what I have to do to be legal. Don't need to donate any more money to the state then I have to.
-- Edited by 67ss on Tuesday 14th of February 2012 11:53:42 AM
Lost in the 60s said
Feb 14, 2012
Chris, there is no weight limit for commercial use of trucks/trailers. You don't need a CDL, but any equipment used for commercial purposes has to have an annual safety inspection and current sticker indicating the inspection date on them. All those guys you see with lawn care, snow plows and bobcats fall under a commercial use and are subject to the inspection law. The DOT has had a field day ticketing them for the past few years and if you look at the condition of the fly-by-night operations, I'm glad they have worked to get them off the road or brought up to acceptable safety standards.
dashboard said
Feb 14, 2012
I'm sure you already checked the other lug nuts.
Lost in the 60s said
Feb 14, 2012
dashboard wrote:
I'm sure you already checked the other lug nuts.
All ten on the right were sufficiently tight. 3 of the 5 on the left front, I turned about 3/4 revolution. I wish manufacturers had kept the old standard of left hand threads on the left to prevent axle and wheel nuts from coming loose from rotational inertia. I will damn well be checking them quite often after this...
jim larson said
Feb 14, 2012
Glad to here everyone is OK. I have heard of people being killed by run away tires. That city traffic makes me glad I live in rural, MN
OscarZ said
Feb 14, 2012
Glad nobody was hurt and no further damage was done!
HHR - High Heart Rate!
bowtie said
Feb 14, 2012
Our big parts truck has to have DOT numbers on it and the annual inspection, plus the driver has to have a DOT physical so only a couple guys can drive it on the roads.
Chris-is yours for business, or personal? You might be able to get by if she's not transporting as a business or anything, otherwise you also have to sticker the truck somehow too.
Lost in the 60s said
Feb 15, 2012
bowtie wrote:
Our big parts truck has to have DOT numbers on it and the annual inspection, plus the driver has to have a DOT physical so only a couple guys can drive it on the roads.
Chris-is yours for business, or personal? You might be able to get by if she's not transporting as a business or anything, otherwise you also have to sticker the truck somehow too.
I think his truck is a 1 ton with a Y plate, which is automatically commercial.
67ss said
Feb 15, 2012
Yep my truck does have a Y plate on it and it has a GVW over 10,000 lbs.
Quite the interesting day.
Here it is coming out of the yard and onto my trailer.
On the way back, I dropped down to Waverly to get a rear door that was on craigslist. As I was going thru Delano from Waverly, a state patrol commercial vehicle inspector pulled me over. He wanted to know who the company was that I was working for, who the HHR belonged to, etc. I told him it was all privately owned, there was no commercial usage. I showed him the copy of the title transfer for the HHR and the trailer. He sounded genuinely disappointed that he couldn't right me a pile of tickets for not having a state inspection sticker on my truck and trailer !!
After that, I followed 12 into 394 to I94 east and across to 35W north to go to Hwy 36. Just after I crossed the river bridge by the U, I felt a strange vibration and then the truck jolted back and forth from side to side a couple times. I looked in the mirror and the trailer was swaying side to side and just then the left rear tire/wheel came off and was rolling along beside me at 62 mph !!! I started slowing down and watching the tire. I was in the far right lane and it rolled across the other 3 lanes and into the median. I was relieved to see a guard rail that would prevent it from going into the southbound traffic and hitting someone head-on. When we were down to about 45, it hit a huge concrete pillar and REVERSED direction in a heartbeat, arched 20 feet in the air, crossing over the guard rail and landing in the southbound lanes where it bounced a few more times and came to rest straddling the white line dividing the 2 left lanes. I was out of the truck and crossed 4 lanes of traffic in a flash, waited for the cars to quit veering around it and got it out of the road. The lug holes were trashed from 4 of the 5 nuts working loose. All the studs finally broke off and that's what I saw flying out when I looked in my mirror. The drum was hanging about an inch above the raod surface, so I started going down the shoulder at 20 mph and after I didn't hear it scrapping or leaving a shower of sparks, I gradually increased the speed to the minimum 40 and drove the 16 miles home on 3 wheels. It would touch on some bumps and all right hand turns but it did very little damage.
Once I had the trailer in my shop, I ran down to Ace trailer in Hastings for a new drum/hub assembly and wheel. He had just sold the 4 drums he had last Friday but came up with a used one that looked like new and GAVE it to me. I bought a wheel and had him remove my tire from the junk wheel and mount it on the new one. He charged me $58 for all that along with 5 new lug nuts !! The wheel is a modular and doesn't match the other spoke wheels, but I was/am planning to put aluminum wheels on it at some point anyway.
On the way back up Manning from Hastings, I saw 2 birds in a tree ahead and having the camera with, I was able to get some pics of them.
All in all, it wasn't a bad day. The trailer debackle could've been much worse and seeing the eagles on the way home helped my mood a little.
Scary stuff Mitch. I'm just glad you are o.k. after all that.
Damn, thats a story for sure. Glad you came out of it fairly unscathed.
On a different note. Since when does the DOT care about a pickup truck and car trailer? Thats the most stupidest thing I have ever heard, your under the GVW that those guys should legally care about. Hell, if thats how they like to play thier games, they would have a field day with us when we caravan to the Rock for a day at the track. What a bunch of BS.
I hate to admit but I am flying under the radar with my truck and horse trailer. I think I better look into this to see what I have to do to be legal. Don't need to donate any more money to the state then I have to.
-- Edited by 67ss on Tuesday 14th of February 2012 11:53:42 AM
Chris, there is no weight limit for commercial use of trucks/trailers. You don't need a CDL, but any equipment used for commercial purposes has to have an annual safety inspection and current sticker indicating the inspection date on them. All those guys you see with lawn care, snow plows and bobcats fall under a commercial use and are subject to the inspection law. The DOT has had a field day ticketing them for the past few years and if you look at the condition of the fly-by-night operations, I'm glad they have worked to get them off the road or brought up to acceptable safety standards.
I'm sure you already checked the other lug nuts.
Glad nobody was hurt and no further damage was done!
HHR - High Heart Rate!
Chris-is yours for business, or personal? You might be able to get by if she's not transporting as a business or anything, otherwise you also have to sticker the truck somehow too.
Yep my truck does have a Y plate on it and it has a GVW over 10,000 lbs.