It was the evening of Christmas day and we had just setup
camp at
Talbotville.
Getting dark, light rain but finally we were relaxing round the campfire when my mate running a couple of hours behind us, came limping into
camp dragging his near new (1 yr old) Xtrail off-road camper trailer
minus 1 wheel and
suspension after the 50mm square solid steel stub axle had simply sheared right through a couple of km up the track.
Image Could Not Be Found
Image Could Not Be Found
Image Could Not Be Found
In the wet slippery conditions his tow car a GU Patrol came very close to going right over the edge of this steep narrow mountain road.
It would have been almost certain death and I can tell you it shocked a few people to the core to see just how close iit had been.
The track into
Talbotville had recently had a light grade and was wet when a servre drag suddenly slewed his car across the narrow track
and my mate saw the some 70kg of wheel, brake assembly and stub axle fly over the back of the car and go straight over the edge.
The car bucked and swung back slewing again as the broken end of the
suspension dug into the track.
The Patrol ended up with one front wheel right on the near vertical track edge sinking into the soft dirt and displacing a few rocks which crashed down the valley.
This track is narrow and was now fully blocked, there were no options but to try and drag the trailer 2km down to
our camp
This left quite a gouge in the road , and in bad conditions we worked to get the trailer stabilized with
chain sawed logs etc so that at least it could be setup and slept in.
By 11pm the we were back around the
camp fire discussing options - the quiet start to our holidays seemed a long way away.
Next morning we got on our bikes to inspect the scene with little hope of finding the bits as it was steep and a 600ft drop to the river below.
But there was good luck amongst the bad and the flying wheel had struck a tree full on and slid to the treebase where my son discovered it only 30m down the slope.
The side of the road up there though is made from dirt rocks and
debris pushed over the edge and is difficult to stand on let alone work on, two years ago I had taken someone else to hospital after trying to negotiate it.
We took a car back and with 3 helpers I went over the edge on a with a winch cable support and we were able
to winch up the twisted 70kg mess dislodging loose road material on the way.
Back at
camp we determined the break was a near straight fracture right through the axle centre and we could attempt to repair it on site.
We had my brother, an expert bush welder with us and another mate, a professional welder arriving that day, he was forewarned to bring extra weld rods and a proper welding mask.
It took some hours with hand files and hand hacksaw to prepare the bits, and took me some time to setup a 3 battery 36v welding setup.
We had the whole assembly cooking in the campfire the pre-heat the bits and help with getting a deeper weld penetration.
Image Could Not Be Found
Another couple of hours and my brother had put in welds that were better than the original and we added 4mm side plates to boot , I repaired the electric brake controller and with a few other minor fixes
we declared the trailer better than new and the real start to our holidays could begin.
Image Could Not Be Found
My welder friends had the following comments and go with the attached pictures.
The original weld was not carried thru to completion along 1 side leaving two welds ends.
Apparently this creates fracture points.
Had a full weld been done this whole sad event may not have happened.
Image Could Not Be Found
A close look at the pictures shows 3 distinct colour grades across the fractures.
It would appear a stress fracture began at one of the weld ends early in its life.
This fracture slowly worked its way through the 50mm steel.
The last section of steel about 1cm thru gave way suddenly caused the loss of the
suspension assembly.
One picture here (number 38) shows an uncleaned pocket of slag in the steel at the corner.
Image Could Not Be Found
Using just our 36 volt battery the welding process penetrated easily and deep into the steel indicating weak or crystalline steel below.
This was an accident waiting to happen and there are some unhappy people out there.
Please have yours checked ASAP.