what happened lost a wheel

[busybee]

After a good day out on my trip home of 8miles drive with rib on a single axle braked trailer one entire wheel came off at around 20mph, five year old trailer new brakes each each year. The hole tyre and wheel came off and all four bolts no where to be seen all threads in the brake drum are intact
brake drum smoking hot maybe from being dragged 50 meters with no wheel or maybe jammed brakes but have not looked inside the brake drum yet. The drum has sealed alko bearings.
So how can all four bolts come undone without shearing
any of them.
I moved the trailer around the mariner and the brakes were not stuck on. So what happened?

[Last Tango]

Have a careful look at the bolt holes in the wheels. If they're "ovaled" or worn oversized the wheel has simply been running loose until the last bolt fell out.

They have either not been torqued up properly, the wrong bolts or different wheels fitted?

The wheels on some trailers don't have a matching centre hole and boss for alignment so rely on the bolt tapers to centre the wheel. I have seen the bolts on these appear to be ok then need re-torqued after the trailer has rolled a few yards.

[HDAV]

Where was trailer parked before the trip?

Not unheard of for nuts to be loosened on purpose.....

If there is cctv ask for it to be checked

[beamishken]

I remember this happening 40 years ago to my uncles boat trailer. The boat dropped to one side so he slowed down to see what was up and the wheel bounced past us, we walked back down the road found 2 of the nuts bolted the wheel back on stole a nut off the other side and carried on and went fishing.
We just put it down to not being tight enough
But excess heat could help loosen the wheel too

[busybee]

The wheels were the original ones supplied on a rapide trailer supplied by Ribcraft,
the bolt holes in the wheels were slightly ovaled, the bolts were tight at the time of fitting. Interestingly the wheel that came off was opposite to the clamped wheel
while in the marina while I was at sea for three hours, maybe I will ask marina to check cctv for anybody tampering but does to me see unlikely.
After all this is fixed I will add check tightening of wheel nuts on every trip.

[Last Tango]

If the holes in the wheel are ovaled, I'd think about replacing the wheel.

Potentially the leading edge if the bolt taper could be going right through the hole and make a mockery of the torque setting

[Poly]

Originally Posted by busybee

After all this is fixed I will add check tightening of wheel nuts on every trip.

Can you get the right size yellow "checkpoints" you see on trucks / busses that enable you to see at a glance if a wheel nut is working loose?

[Pikey Dave]

Might get meself some

http://www.tyre-equipment.co.uk/acat...ndicators.html

[busybee]

yes wheel will be trashed because of oval holes, I took the drum off today the brakes were good and bearing was good, I think the cable might have cause intermittent brake binding though,but threads in the brake drum were good , I am going back tomorrow to the place where wheel fell off to try to find the bolts, I believe they must have all came off together maybe wasted threads on the bolts
at least if I find them I will know. Those plastic arrows for wheel nuts are a great idea. I am now thinking if I need two new brake drums, shoes,adjusters, nuts and cables better to replace the whole axle? could be cheaper?