Boat tail project based on a single wheel trailer...

[deejaaa]

similar but different incident:
in Canada, take the kids on a 4 wheeler ride, several hrs, ea kid. nephew gets on the ride back to camp. hrs later he walks back. said wheel lost all lugs and wheel fell off. damage was wallowed rim. found 2 lugs under wheeler. strange.

[freebeard]

A close call. Is there any way one round hole in the pant would let you rotate the wheel and check each lug nut in succession?

Probably the flat-out spookiest thing that ever happened to me was in the late 90s. I was driving to work in my '64 VW Notchback sedan. The one with a 1776 and a five-speed. About a half mile from my little cabin in the woods I made a left turn off a stop sign. About 50 yards from the sign, something came adrift. I got out and looked and on the left rear, all four* lug nuts were missing and the wheel was jammed up in the wheelwell. I even walked half-way back to the stop sign and never found even one of the lug nuts. +

I can conceive driving on as few as two tight lug nuts, but this was as if they all teleported into another dimension—simultaneously. I took one lug nut from each of the other wheels and put the wheel back on. I wasn't even late for work.

I still haven't figured that one out.

*I know, '64s have five lugnuts. This one was on a '71 pan.

[BamZipPow]

Originally Posted by freebeard

A close call. Is there any way one round hole in the pant would let you rotate the wheel and check each lug nut in succession?

Thanks fer the suggestion! It would be easier to just take the wheel pant off to inspect the lug bolts. Of course, it would be a whole lot easier and cheaper to just make sure they were torqued down correctly in the first place. I will just have to chalk this one up as a learning experience to make sure everything is properly in place and tightened correctly before buttoning it up. At least I can say I made a boo boo as well when it comes to tightening lug bolt/nuts.

So far, 4 new lug bolts at Tractor Supply Co cost me about $9 and a new replacement tire from Harbor Freight about $33. At least the trailer jack did the job I needed it to...and not a trip too late either!

I'm thinking about making the lower front support brace out of some tubing so it can't git deformed too badly if I back into the curb.

[BamZipPow]

Tire and rim carnage...

[aerohead]

Ah shuks,yuuv jus got her broke in now.Put a big ol' patch on that thar tire 'n yer good to go! (a large tobacco drool cascading down the cheek)

[BamZipPow]

Removed a majority of the screws holding the wheel pant frame work together to minimize potential issues and used steel pop rivets to keep it all together. I reinforced the lower cover plate with some brackets since it was originally held together with Tyvek tape. At least the wheel pant is installed again!

I'll start framing out the new smaller belly pan since the tail of the wheel pant has to clear it when Dark Aero is loaded down and I'm backing up. I guess it was smart to keep those sand bag ballasts around.

[BamZipPow]

Some of the options fer the belly pan being considered:

Geared to raise up when backing up (wheel engages a drive shaft to raise belly pan). Very complicated to build.

Stepped belly pan fer clearance of the wheel pant tail. Even though this may be the easiest path, this will only provide a minimal amount of belly pan.

A hybrid of the stepped belly pan and the lazy Susan belly pan section that I attempted before. The lazy Susan support would be secured on the new reinforced support plate and shouldn't have too much vertical movement while traveling down the road. There is a lot of engineering to be done fer this type of setup.

I know I don't want to raise the bottom lip of the front part of the trailer as there will be no clearance left fer the landing gear in the stowed/up position. Another option would be to use a different landing gear setup that would give me more clearance when the landing gear is stowed.

I found and used some cardboard to install on the bottom of Dark Aero, attached a pencil on the end of the tail, and let the wheel assembly draw the clearance arc fer me. That will become my template to make my belly pan.

[BamZipPow]

First basic belly pan is done!

[BamZipPow]

Reinforced the support tabs that hold the canopy to the aero cap hatch.

Painted the upper gap covers as well as touching up some of the worn spots, too! Removed the grease from the contact points between the clear side gap covers and the upper gap covers since it was just a big mess. Gonna go with some felt and see how well that does over time.

[aerohead]

Oh yeah!!