This may be common knowledge, or it may have been covered before but I thought I'd share with you an experience that happened to us two weeks ago. 10 k's south of
Mount Isa, the DO35 coupling came apart! The Tvan stayed behind us on the safety chains, but as I discovered when we stopped a couple hundred metres later, it wasn't staying on for much longer. What happened I've covered here as two subjects.
1) The M5 x 40 stainless steel wave pin that holds the castle nut on the rear of the coupling in place had rusted away and broken off. The only part left of it was the bit that goes through the shaft. I had to use a hammer and punch to remove it. But sufficient of it had disappeared to allow the castle nut to wind itself off. I had noticed a dull kinda thud now and then for a couple of days beforehand, and I had looked around the tow bar but assumed it was the Haymen Reece assembly "natural movement". When the castle nut finally wound all the way off, the shaft slid forwards out of the hitch block and set the Tvan free! Luckily the chains were on..... but were they fitted correctly?
2) When we picked up our Tvan back in 09, the bloke doing the hand over set our chain length and we haven't altered it. I assumed wrongly that he had set it correctly, but in fact he hadn't as we found out when the events described above occurred. With the Tvan free of the DO35, and even though the chains were crossed, the drawer bar lent downwards and the safety chains dragged on the bitumen, grinding down the forward two nuts and bolts and also grinding away at the safety chain. One of the links ground far enough through that it disconnected from the drawer bar and was swinging in the breeze, the other was about 2 mm from following suit. In a bizarre occurrence, the castle nut must have caught on the drawer bar till we stopped because we found it right beside the trailer in the dust of the roadside. So with the aid of our Hi-lift jack to get the Tvan back on its jockey wheel, we successfully put it together to get us into Mt. Isa where we stayed till Monday morning when I could buy supplies to fix it properly. We cleaned the assembly with degreaser, re-greased it and put it together and put a large split pin to hold it till I can source the correct pin when we return
home. I
check that pin every day! I have shortened the chains as
well, trying to keep them of a length that won't allow the trailer drawer bar to drag along the ground should this occur again.
So that's the story.... I thought 'd post the story here in case someone doesn't know it can happen. This could have been a very ugly accident, luckily for us it had a happy ending and we've been having a great holiday with our Tvan.
Sad that I find this bit necessary but let me make it perfectly clear that I do NOT believe it is a faulty product, Track Trailers are NOT irresponsible for this event, and the makers of the Hitchmaster DO35 are NOT responsible either. It was a wear and tear thing. Plain and simple.
Also, the Hand Over Guy is NOT responsible for the chain length thing.... I am!!
Cheers
Brian