Broken leaf spring

[Rocky Lohman2]

On Monday night, 10:30 PM, I was driving back from a lake about 80 miles from home. I had to pull off the road to take a leak, when I pulled back on the car seemed to be a little sluggish going up hills, when all of a sudden it felt like I had a flat tire. Pulled over again, walked around to the passenger side of the boat and in the light of my flash light I could see a shredded tire -my new Marathon! Got out the jack, jacked up the axle, took off the tire, and proceeded to place the spare on the studs, but it would not fit - it ran into the rear part of the fender?? Looked under the boat only to discover that the leaf spring had broken and pulled apart. The top two leafs had cracked and split apart, the thin metal band around the springs still held the bundle together, and the shackle had pivoted back against the frame. All of this caused the tire to pivot back and rub against the back of the fender heating it up and shredding it. Needless to say I could not fix it that night. Unloaded the boat of everything and went home. My fishing partner and I returned the next morning with the back of the Jeep loaded with everything we might need to fix it, if we could. When we looked at the spring, we could see perfectly straight breaks at 90 degree angles across the springs. The metal edges of the breaks were rusted so obviously the cracks were not new! Probably pulling off the road the first time where the ground was kinda soft caused the tire to move back . Glad I was on a county road and not the interstate! Anyway, after getting area phone numbers from a helpful passerby, making lots of phone calls, we went to a nearby town (35 miles) and bought a replacement spring, bolts etc. from a very helpful clerk. We returned to the boat and replaced the broken spring in about two hours. It is now home and in my garage. Looking back on the event I was pretty lucky, if the small metal band around the spring had broken, the spring would have pivoted down maybe catching the road surface, flipping the boat, punching a hole in the boat, or destroying the motor. Luckily, there are good people in Nebraska and nothing happened to my boat overnight. Word of advice - check your leaf springs from time to time. It will be interesting to hear what the Tracked dealer has to say about the defective springs! If I can figure out how to post the pictures of the spring I will.

 

[Jim Corson]

I had a situation over the last month or so. Over the last month or so, everytime i hit a bump with my trailer, it would squeak pretty bad, enuf to drive me nuts. I used WD-40, and bought special stuff from my local dealer, it was crc 556 or something like that, anyways, sprayed the livin bejesus out of the springs, shackles and etc. Didn't help, last weekend, i jacked the trailer up and got under the trailer, and found rubber debris on the side of the leaf springs, checked the inside of the tire and it had been rubbing on the leaf springs, just on the drivers side tho. I dropped the leaf spring down to check the bushings and noticed alot of side to side play. I checked all the bolts for the shackles and etc on both sides and they were all loose, as i had to tighten with a ratchet, probably 5 turns to tighten them up. I checked the bolts for the U-bolts for the springs and they were fine, but i tightened everything up and its 95% better, still a slight squeak every so often but i can live with that. I now will keep a closer watch on them bolts, so BEWARE. This was on my '04 NX882DC trailer.