Yes it is. We almost had a heart attack when we looked at the sticker price on the F350 dually 4X4 Super Duty. My gosh, how do people afford those things?

 

With a job paying a job more then what I get.

 

We could probably combine incomes and not have enough to pay for it.


$1200 a month on a 60 month contract..........

 

I have looked at houses with land selling for less then a new pickup.
Okay so the house is a fixer but still house or new pickup.

 

Large SUV pricing is equally ridiculous. It's cheaper to buy a fully-optioned F-250 than it is to buy a fully-optioned Expedition.

 

Morning kythri and those to follow. New vehicles are just plain expensive now days.

 

Been doing some of that myself... gotta lave boat trailers. Re-did everything on this new to me outfit and had issues with this one. Hopefully it's fixed although I see an axle replacement in my future.

 

Good morning everyone. While we were doing the paperwork on the Explorer Mason was playing in a new Expetition EL Platinum. I think sticker price on it was about $90k!

We looked at prices on new Explorers and couldn't stomach paying $40k or more. The one we got is 3 years newer than our Escape was, lower miles, and has lots of good extras. Leather seats, backup camera, Bluetooth, new tires. Drives like a dream!

 

Hello Evan, River Wild!

Have a good-safe day folks.
Time to head for Forest Grove and Hillsboro for the day.

 

Good morning Oregon and everyone everywhere else. 53.7 and solid overcast.


Howdy River Wild. Put bearing buddies on your boat trailer and grease them up for every trip.
I had them for this trailer, but a spindle was bad when we bought it. The PO we bought it from told us the bearings had been repacked and it was all set for the season. He didn't mention that the RR spindle was scored and bad.
I had checked and repacked a couple of the bearings just to be sure, but I didn't clean the grease from the spindle or clean it down to bare metal. If I had, I would have probably seen that storm clouds were on the horizon. The plan was that when we got home from the trip to Detroit Lake the First of April for the "new to us" boats maiden voyage, doing brakes and a thorough bearing repack and inspection along with the bearing buddy installation was on the plate.

That bad spindle caused a major break down on the April trip. We were away from home so the boat sat at a NAPA repair shop in Woodburn for a month and a half. Escort Trailers are no longer made and they kept trying to tell me there were no axles available. (BS as you can find them at Eastern Marine in a 2 second search and I'm sure other places have post market axles.)

Finally told them to just get a spindle and weld it on making sure the camber was correct. They insisted that both sides had to be done on that axle or they would not cover it under the guarantee and warranty. So we have a brand new spindles on both sides of the rear axle. We took the brakes off the rear axle and capped the line so that we would still have brakes on the front axle. I'm going to put new backing plates and guts on the front axle. Spindles and bearings are fine.


Some people have been asking me why I'm bothering with the brakes on the boat trailer, but as heavy as the boat and camper are, I don't think helping the pickup brakes are going to hurt anything at all. Especially with the coast range and Cascade Mountain roads we have around here.

Is that an electric brake caliper in the pic?

 

Seabiscuit - I kind of have a boat problem...have owned too many to list but this one is probably my last...well maybe... I keep telling myself that...

The spindle is scored on this wheel where the inner seal rides. I might try to sleeve it but not sure yet. I kept loosing the caps on this one every trip so had to pull it to centerpunch in inside to get some grip. There was also quite a bit of play so I also tightened the nut down a bit more. More than I like but the play is gone and it seems to spin nice and eazy still. We'll see.

I like buddy bearings a lot but this has the Ez-lube system and I kinda like it too. It has a zerk on the end of the spindle with holes that allow you to pump in new grease and force out the old. I like to keep the entire hub full so there is no room for water to get in. My theory anyway.

This trailer has surge disk brakes. I'm not a fan but that's what it came with. They work ok but I don't like the clunking. Someday I'll convert to Elec over hydraulic. Had that on a previous boat and it was the bomb.

Once I'm confident in the trailer then I need to work on the boat. It's got a few minor issues and need to update the electronics. Only had this boat a few months and out 5 times but it does catch fish so it's all good.

 

I didn't realize how pretty you were Evan...lol

 

You can never tell over the internet!

 

So true...lol

 

Good evening Oregon and everyone everywhere else. Phil Sheridan's Grand Parade is over with. Ran into some stuck bolts on the boat trailer so only got the Right side front axle done today.

I know what you mean about the boats. The last one was going to be the last one we would ever need or want...now we have this one. Actually we currently have 3 boats. Two of the them are going to go down the road very shortly, probably within a few days of us getting back from Odell and Diamond Lakes. in 4 weeks.

Exactly what had happened to mine. If I had cleaned the new grease off of the spindle when I packed bearings, I would have seen just how bad it was. It tightened down and had a good turn to it, so I didn't worry when I should have.
Apparently the scoring allowed it to develop some free play and to start working it on the road and the rest was history....Been pulling trailers, from heavy farm and stock trailers to boat trailers for around 50+ years and had never lost a bearing, until April 5th. I do not plan on a repeat of that experience.

I've heard about and seen the EZ Lubes and it looks like it should be a good system. A fellow up at Detroit showed me his a couple of weeks ago.
I just almost had them order the ez lube spindles in April, but I seemed to be having a hard time getting them to do anything. Even to the point that I talked with my insurance man and was making arrangements to have it towed else where. They did good work, it was just getting them to work on it.

I fill everything so full of greese that I set a greese can under the weep hole and leave it for a while. When the little snakes quit slithering out, then I wipe it down and put the dust caps on.

I was just looking at the electric over hydraulics before I started this job. The price is pretty steep though so we will just stick with the surge drum brakes for now. I would really like to figure out a way to get rid of the surge actuator assembly that sticks up above the coupler.

There are some "inside" or "underneath" surge actuators that I may look into over the winter. That would eliminate the "camel hump" at the coupler that can cause some problems under the back of the camper if I'm not careful.