I was making a brick walk in front of my house in Wisconsin, and I needed to get a bunch of the brick cut into little triangle shapes to fill in along the edges, as I was doing a herringbone pattern.
I loaded probably 400-500 pounds of bricks into a little UHaul trailer and hooked it up to my 1991 Ford Escort wagon. Thinking that it was best to have the load in the front of the trailer, I stacked the bricks up against the front wall ahead of the axle. I got out on I-43 and started to drive, accelerating up to the speed limit. The trailer started whipping around like a crazed cat, ultimately taking hold of the car and spinning it around in a complete circle at least once before I ended up on the median facing in the opposite direction on the same side of the road I had been on. As this was happening, an elderly couple in a green Buick (this part is etched in my brain) was passing me. I remember looking at them, as I was no more than a passenger at this point, and seeing the look of terror in their eyes. When I came to a stop, the contents of a cup of Coke I had was sprayed all over me and the interior of my car. After I had gathered my senses, I carefully drove (with my hazards on at a very low speed) to the next exit, where I redistributed the load and then drove cross country at a reduced speed to the masonry company that was cutting my bricks... A very practical learning experience when it comes to properly loading a trailer. Dan Sent from my iPhone On Jan 17, 2012, at 10:00 PM, Curt Raymond <curtlud...@yahoo.com> wrote: > First time I ever used my snowmobile trailer I didn't have enough weight on > the tongue and over 45mph it whipped like a snake, slow down just a little > and the problem went away. Slid a snowmobile forward 6 inches, problem > cured... > That trailer was designed with the axle too far forward, it was always hard > to get enough weight on the tongue, even empty. Took it to Maine one year for > moose hunting (well moose retrieval anyway), on the way up we had a mattress > for the camp which balanced the trailer nicely. For the trip home we had to > strap a log to the front of the now empty trailer to make it track and not > try to spin the truck. > > My new trailer has a salt guard on the front which makes balancing much > easier. > > -Curt > _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
