How NOT to Leave Your Storage Area

We are planning on leaving for Fredericksburg, TX later this week so, went to storage to bring home the BC. Hooked it up...checked the tires, lights...and thought I was ready to go.

Our storage area exits onto a fairly busy two lane highway on the edge of town. There is a bit of a grade leaving the facility and of course a mailbox on the right hand side of the drive.

As usual, I swung wide, taking up both lanes of traffic to make my exit.....suddenly everything stopped....brake controller showed a short circuit in system....trailer brakes locked solid....traffic building!

Got out and of course immediately noticed that I had pulled the plunger out of the safety break....simple enough...just put it back in. No way. What had happened was the cable had somehow found the one pinch point where the hitch meets the rails and was stuck tight. The only thing I could do was to cut the cable...then put the plug back in to get on my way....much to the delight of the Sunday morning traffic!

I have always carried a pair of fence pliers in my truck....the wire cutter portion came in very handy! Now I have to go and buy a length of cable and make a new set up. I've pulled 5 different trailers with this set up and never had this type of problem...now that I know it exists, I''' set up something to keep the cable from ever getting hung up again.

Travel Safe!

I had that happen when we towed the ER with our big truck lucky It had the power to pull it with the breaks locked so I could get out of the traffic lanes.(the only good thing about pulling it with the big truck)But it still makes you feel like a rookie.

Nothing like that ever happens until you have an audience to see it.

SilverRhino said:

We are planning on leaving for Fredericksburg, TX later this week so,

Travel Safe!

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Where are you guys staying and how long? We are planning on being there June 28--31 to help cook Gumbo.

Jim M

jimtoo said:

Where are you guys staying and how long? We are planning on being there June 28--31 to help cook Gumbo.

Jim M

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Unfortunately we will only be there for two weeks...coming back Memorial weekend. We will be staying at the Fredericksburg KOA just outside town.

Thats exactly what happened to me a couple of weeks ago. At least I was almost into a parking lot when the pin got pulled, but I still got "the look" from several locals that were trying to get into the parking lot and had to dodge around me.

After this happened to me a few times, I added an extension loop to the cable... I realy don't care if it takes an additional nano-second for the brakes to engage if the 5er becomes loose from the TV.

CS

I had a buddy (with SOB) call me last summer. He thought he was having transmissino problems as he could hardly move his trailer. He was on his way home from a trip and had just turned a very sharp uneven corner. His cable got caught on the hitch rail corner at the bed and pulled the pin. To prevent this from happening again on his and on mine, I installed a length of sprial wrap over the cable. It is similar to split loom like the RV cables are in except the split is sprialed instead of straighlt. This prevents the cable from coming out. It provides a greater diameter and smooth surface that should sllide over the pinch point rather than get caught in it.