[Vintage-race] Trailer tires

[John Caffrey]

Over a 6 year span I destroyed 4 tandem fiberglass fenders on my 18" 
Pace American because of tire blowouts, and two of them were not due to 
age. The lightweight trailers that use the triangular torsion tube axles 
do not evenly distribute the weight on each axle unless the trailer is 
level, and because we towed with two different trucks, had not been 
careful in trailer leveling. When we were 1.5" higher in the front we 
would overload the tires on the rear-most axle. We have the highest load 
capacity 13 trailer tires, and there isn't room between the axles to 
switch to 14" so have to live with it.. I thought I had it figured out, 
but now will closely watch the tires for crowning. Thanks for the heads up.
John
Fogelsville, PA



Elton E. (Tony) Clark wrote:
> *We've experienced exactly the same thing and are becoming convinced the
> phenom is caused by the tires  sitting without movement for long periods of
> time under the trailer weight . . It's going to be a minor pain in the azz
> but I think we're gonna start blocking the trailer axles off the ground when
> we know the trailer won't move for a month or so. *
> *Tony in Texas  *
>
> On Thu, Oct 2, 2008 at 7:08 AM, <John.Desantis at inficon.com> wrote:
>
>   
>>        Two friends of mine have recently had multiple trailer tire
>> failures (tread pealing off) while on trips.  When purchasing replacement
>> tires, friend #2 was told that trailer tires delaminate in about 4 years.
>> The tire seller also mentioned that it was easy to determine when the
>> tires were near failure.  He mentioned that the center section of the
>> tread raises up.  So I go home and check out my 4 year old ST205/75-15's
>> and they are very distinctly raised in the center, approximately 1/4 inch.
>>  When I checked the spare that is the same age as the tires on the
>> trailer- it looked normal.  I am planning to buy 4 new tires come spring.
>>
>>        Reading anything I could find on the web about trailer tires I
>> found the it is highly recommended to replace them every
>> 4 year.  I also found info on tread delamination, I could not find any
>> thing mentioned about the tread raising up.
>>
>>        Has anyone out there had similar experience with raised tread?