Post by yellowstone67 on Oct 6, 2019 6:30:29 GMT -8
Hi,
We’re new to the forum. We’ve owned a 16ft, cab-over, 1967 Yellowstone camper built in Elkhart IN for 3 years. We have a 2003 GMC Yukon tow vehicle. We love our little camper and as newbies took it from NYS to Nashville and back with a few incidents. We upgraded our tow vehicle to V8 after that trip.
Almost since getting the camper we’ve been working with a Vintage Trailer garage run by second generation family who have been great. We had some structural work done on the front due to an old leak that had left some dry rot. Beyond that our garage gave us total thumbs up on sturdiness, safety and general great condition considering it’s age.
Sorry for the long introduction. Four days ago we left on a six week cross country trip with our camper from New York State heading to Oregon, down the West coast to LA and back. The first night out a man in our campground told us he heard a noise in our hubcap. We took the hub cap off and inside it rattling around was a metal cab which we think is called the dust cap. It was threaded and he helped us get it back on & tightened it with channel locks. We didn’t think much more about it & went in our way.
Fast forward to day 4. We’re on I-80 in Iowa headed to Nebraska going about 65mph in the right lane when Bill who was driving realized he could see the drivers side trailer tire was no longer perpendicular to the road. He very carefully managed to get us into the shoulder. At first I thought the axle had broken and we won’t find out til tomorrow exactly what caused this to happen & whether we can get it fixed. BTW sparks from the acmes & leaf springs dragging on the road at 65mph for the short time it took to get to the median caused a fire in the median.
It went by flatbed to a garage off I-80 that seems trustworthy and capable. They’ve only made a preliminary assessment due to the weekend but we may need a new axle etc. The Camper has an electric braking system which they suggested we might not really need but we feel pretty strongly that we want. the axle is actually not broken but the plate at the end of the axle pulled away from the tire allowing the axle to drop and the iron springs on that side to be pretty much destroyed.
We are happy to be alive and know this is going to be expensive with a hard decision to make. We’re looking for advice and information on how to proceed. We are wondering now if that dust cap being off for who knows how long, allowed the wheel bearing lubrication to leak out or dry up or something, creating extreme heat mode and failure.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you all & happy vintage camping.
Christine
We’re new to the forum. We’ve owned a 16ft, cab-over, 1967 Yellowstone camper built in Elkhart IN for 3 years. We have a 2003 GMC Yukon tow vehicle. We love our little camper and as newbies took it from NYS to Nashville and back with a few incidents. We upgraded our tow vehicle to V8 after that trip.
Almost since getting the camper we’ve been working with a Vintage Trailer garage run by second generation family who have been great. We had some structural work done on the front due to an old leak that had left some dry rot. Beyond that our garage gave us total thumbs up on sturdiness, safety and general great condition considering it’s age.
Sorry for the long introduction. Four days ago we left on a six week cross country trip with our camper from New York State heading to Oregon, down the West coast to LA and back. The first night out a man in our campground told us he heard a noise in our hubcap. We took the hub cap off and inside it rattling around was a metal cab which we think is called the dust cap. It was threaded and he helped us get it back on & tightened it with channel locks. We didn’t think much more about it & went in our way.
Fast forward to day 4. We’re on I-80 in Iowa headed to Nebraska going about 65mph in the right lane when Bill who was driving realized he could see the drivers side trailer tire was no longer perpendicular to the road. He very carefully managed to get us into the shoulder. At first I thought the axle had broken and we won’t find out til tomorrow exactly what caused this to happen & whether we can get it fixed. BTW sparks from the acmes & leaf springs dragging on the road at 65mph for the short time it took to get to the median caused a fire in the median.
It went by flatbed to a garage off I-80 that seems trustworthy and capable. They’ve only made a preliminary assessment due to the weekend but we may need a new axle etc. The Camper has an electric braking system which they suggested we might not really need but we feel pretty strongly that we want. the axle is actually not broken but the plate at the end of the axle pulled away from the tire allowing the axle to drop and the iron springs on that side to be pretty much destroyed.
We are happy to be alive and know this is going to be expensive with a hard decision to make. We’re looking for advice and information on how to proceed. We are wondering now if that dust cap being off for who knows how long, allowed the wheel bearing lubrication to leak out or dry up or something, creating extreme heat mode and failure.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you all & happy vintage camping.
Christine
