Towing my trailer to its current build place, i had my first breakdown already.
My first learning moment for trailers you might say.
I was driving for about 200 meters (...) when i heard a loud klunk noise followed bij a screatching sound from a tire on asphalt.
When i looked into my mirror i saw that the left wheel of the trailer didn't roll anymore...
Bloody h#%% that is not a good beginning for my teardrop relationship.
I already got an idea what happened, and it had nothing to do with the wheel bearings.
So after i got the combination home i took off both the wheels, and brakedrums for inspection.
And yes, my suspitions turned out to be true.
Each wheel has 2 braking pads in the drum, and by 3 of my 4 brakingpads (!!) the glue between the brakingshoes and the rest of the pads
had come loose. So a loose brakingshoe turned with the rotation of the wheel, and got stuck between the next brakepad, and brakedrum...
Strangely the brakedrums, and brakepads as well as the wheelbearings looked as new. And were still the factory ones from the build.
Luckily i was doing about 15 kilometer per hour when it happened.
But what really happened?
As it turned out the trailer i bought was used as demonstration trailer for years at a dealership, but never used on the road.
When i bought it much later, and from the second owner, it had still never been on the road, but the one thing witch was used for all those years was the handbrake system.
Appearantly the glue between the brake shoes, and the rest of the brakepads will come loose after long periods of use of the handbrake.
Also the brakeshoe's are only glued. My assumption was that this kind of brake shoes were glued, as well as "rivetted" like the brakeshoes of a truck.
As it turned out they use glue only for years already for drumbrake pads on caravans, and light trailers. (At least in Europe.)
(In retrospect, i had heard a very minimal sound of brakepads touching a brakedrum already. My thougts were i had to re adjust the brakepads, and braking cable, and perhaps grease up the brakingcable, the slidingboom of the towingbar, and pivotingpoint of the brakingbevel. But that was not the case here.)
This is a 1500kg. (about 3300 pound?) rated axle with matching brakesystem from BPW. A big German axle company.
There products meet all the required standards as such.
So when you park your trailer for a longer time, put something before, and behind the wheels, and don't use the handbrake.
(Remember this is an European system. Usa rated systems may be very differend).
For me, (for hobby coming from the vintage motorcycle world), it was an eye opener.
Greets Kees.
(Edit: Since i am not that good with computers, and had to make some older pictures smaller for uploading, i had to do this one hillbilly style,
so yes, i made a print of the old picture, and photographed it on a much lower resolution....)