newby here

will do mate..thx.

extra nuts and spring washers plus locktight on everything.also some extra welding on shocker mounts..mine is the offroad version but I opted out off all the goodies..instead the suspension has been swapped for extreme offroad suspension..7 leaf military stule

Cheers mate,

Like I said, ours is another brand, but I've thought of one other thing I did & that was to replace the bolts holding the poly block hitch onto the trailer with high tensile ones from Repco. The ones that came with the trailer were marked as high tensile, but showed very obvious signs of wear. Ours is an off road version & the suspension is all good, so far anyway.

Cheers,

Kevin.

the hitch bolts look ok so fare..she hasent been offroad much so fare but its going in the deep end now..i'll be checking things along the way..taking spare wheel berings as well..its only me and the dog so im travelling very light compared to most.hoping this will get me through..

A lot of people are very conscious of using the correct bolts, but let themselves down by using mild steel washers, always use hardened washers or the bolt heads/nuts will hammer into them & become loose.

good point shaker..

Yes, very good point Shaker! These are what came with the trailer when I bought it new. There were nylock nuts, but no washers either end.

The trailer had done around 2,000km's when the photo was taken, all on the black top.

I believe the bolts were too small in diameter for the holes they were placed into, which obviously played a part in them wearing.

I only checked them because of something I read here on the forum occurring to someone else.

Scary stuff!

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The bolts shouldn't be able to wear if they are tight. The idea of a bolted system is to create sufficient clamping force so there is no relative movement of the two items which have been bolted together.

The bolts in the picture must have been loose for it to happen.

If the bolts are of suitable diameter and clamped with normal flat washers there should be no movement and no ill effects on the washers either.

Can't say I have ever used hardened washers in an application like that, often it is best not to use spring washers and then the flat washers aren't chewed into.

I hear what you're saying Ross, but the bolts were very tight, I had to use considerable force to get the nuts off (not being defensive about it as I didn't put them on, they were put on by the company I bought it off)

I agree, I don't believe that the bolts were of a suitable diameter. I also think that the bolts are soft steel, not high tensile as is indicated on them & this played a big part in what happened.

The ones I bought at Repco have done over 30,000km's now, more than half of it on rough corrugated roads. They still appear fine, but will be changed soon as preventative maintenance.

Ross, our local bolt supply company say that the biggest single mistake amateurs make is using mild steel washers, but then again, what would they know?

They look like purlin bolts (M12??) If so they would be only 250Mpa mild steel and hardly fit for the job. Their main purpose is to fix steel purlins to cleats welded to the rafters of industrial buildings.

Not the correct bolt by a long shot.

Hi Rosco,

You can't see it in the pics, but they have 8.8 written on the top of each bolt.

Fair enough Kev.

I know Lysaght (Blue Scope) et al do specify HS grade for certain longer spans, so they do get manufactured as both mild and high strength. Obviously these are high strength, but at the end of the day ... they're still purlin bolts and not exactly designed for use in your situation. They're cheap as chips to buy and I would suggest this may have some bearing as to why they have been used.