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Old 05-31-2024, 02:07 PM   #43
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I've had a TST 507 system for years now similar to yours with the monochrome display. Low pressure alerts are received as soon as the display gets a signal from the sensor, usually right at power up of the display. Rapid pressure loss is reported instantly as seen when taking off a sensor to air up a tire.

Loss if a sensor takes a while to be recognized. If a programmed AND displayed sensor doesn't report in or signal received for a half hour or more, the display will beep an alert and indicate the "missing" location.

I've had this happen on my trailer when the sensor battery was low and signal not received. It does take a while to alert though. When not towing, those sensors can be "turned off" using the mode and - button combination to not get the missing sensor alerts.

I don't know the reporting method the sensors use, a once every x minutes of the pressure at that time, or only if there's a change in pressure at the next transmit instance. I think the first as I've left the system on for hours when parked where would be no pressure change at night and never received a no sensor alert.

Essentially, losing the tire assembly is like a battery going dead or leaving the trailer at the site and taking the tow vehicle for a drive. You'll eventually get the loss of sensor alert.

Tom
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Old 05-31-2024, 03:48 PM   #44
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I followed a RV related thread that asked about a TPMS that would report a wheel departing. Not sure if it was here, Forest River, or Airstream. In any case the end determination was that none of the TPMS manufacturers will report a wheel departing. As someone else on this thread noted, if you drop your trailer and drive away, you will continue to get the last reported values regardless of how long you leave the monitor on.
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Old 05-31-2024, 07:59 PM   #45
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When they get the replacement axle, the shop is going to check everything on the old AND new axles to be sure things are correct...


Checking every time you stop is a good idea. We always do a walkaround at stops. Wouldn't have helped in this case since we were only 1 1/2 hours from home so there WERE no stops. But it's still a good idea.



I like the idea of a thermometer - it would be a good way to check when stopping for fuel or whatever... Hopefully, the Hub Savers will work and the worst that'll happen is a wheel gets warm before it gets addressed...



Thermometer is on order.


There are moments when all this feels a like overkill. Then I think about being halfway between Banff And Jasper, 100 miles from either, and having a problem. I figured it was a once-in-a-lifetime anomaly the first time, and clearly I was wrong. I'd rather NOT go for the trifecta...


BTW: I hadn't thought about age or mileage on this trailer, but it came up the other day - 13 or 14 years, even without the 2 years of pandemic I figure we've hauled it at least 70,000 miles, and I suspect quite a bit more.
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Old 06-09-2024, 01:21 PM   #46
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When they get the replacement axle, the shop is going to check everything on the old AND new axles to be sure things are correct...


Checking every time you stop is a good idea. We always do a walkaround at stops. Wouldn't have helped in this case since we were only 1 1/2 hours from home so there WERE no stops. But it's still a good idea.



I like the idea of a thermometer - it would be a good way to check when stopping for fuel or whatever... Hopefully, the Hub Savers will work and the worst that'll happen is a wheel gets warm before it gets addressed...



Thermometer is on order.


There are moments when all this feels a like overkill. Then I think about being halfway between Banff And Jasper, 100 miles from either, and having a problem. I figured it was a once-in-a-lifetime anomaly the first time, and clearly I was wrong. I'd rather NOT go for the trifecta...


BTW: I hadn't thought about age or mileage on this trailer, but it came up the other day - 13 or 14 years, even without the 2 years of pandemic I figure we've hauled it at least 70,000 miles, and I suspect quite a bit more.
I hope I don't jinx myself but we haven't had major issues with our 5th wheel in around 100 000km of trips, many in very remote and desolate areas. The idea is to buy the most robust unit, heavier axles and frames, and units that typically have a lot of CCC (cargo carrying capacity). I believe ours has around 3500lbs of CCC. Worst that has happened is 3 flat tires in all that time, 2 were last summer, a lot of defective tire valves that I installed myself at my shop less than 2 years ago.

No broken axles, bearings, springs, nothing. We have shaken loose a fridge door and other stuff, but nothing that would halt our trip.

IF bearings are well inspected and packed, you should be good to go for at least 2-3 years or 25 000-30 000km or so. If I had to worry about axles and bearings, it'd be getting an upgrade, a new mechanic to work on it, or I'd be replacing it.
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Old 06-10-2024, 08:41 AM   #47
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I hope I don't jinx myself but we haven't had major issues with our 5th wheel in around 100 000km of trips, many in very remote and desolate areas.

I suspect the vast majority of trailers have never had any issues. Including those that get little or no maintenance for tens of thousands of miles. I figure if 10% of the people with RV trailers and boat trailers and utility trailers EVER grease them, adjust them or even look at them I'd be surprised.

Quote:
The idea is to buy the most robust unit, heavier axles and frames, and units that typically have a lot of CCC (cargo carrying capacity).

That sounds great if you're buying something where there's even an OPTION to get "heavier axles and frames", and you know you WANT "heavier axles and frames" and a lot of CCC, but I suspect the overwhelming majority of RV owners never look and aren't even aware of CCC or anything else associated with weight. They get told by the salesperson how pretty the unit is, and much storage there is, and how easy it is to tow, and they load it up and head down the road.

I believe a much higher percentage of people in here have far greater expertise and knowledge about capacity of the unit, and required maintenance, and all the other stuff that needs to be thought about, than the general crop of owners.

Someone is sure to jump up and tell me THEY always check everything and never overload, and service the trailer regularly, and maintain everything that rolls, moves, heats, cools or gets wet. And they DO. But I don't think they're the norm among the entire population of people with trailers of any kind.

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IF bearings are well inspected and packed, you should be good to go for at least 2-3 years or 25 000-30 000km or so. If I had to worry about axles and bearings, it'd be getting an upgrade, a new mechanic to work on it, or I'd be replacing it.

I agree. They SHOULD. And they MUST because there aren't thousands of trailers scattered along the highways.

In theory, putting on upgraded axles and such may be an option. I don't know how many thousand of this 5th wheel were made, with these wheels and hubs and axles and brake assemblies, but there have to be a lot. And the failure rate has to be tiny, despite being overloaded and under-serviced.

Since the failure rate has to be tiny, I believe having two failures is a statistical anomaly and once the new axle is on and set up by the shop, it'll be fine in the future. And in case I'm wrong, the trailer now has hub savers so if something does happen it'll be reasonably easy to take care of. The other two options are to stop traveling or to replace this unit.

Underneath it all, I believe I'm reasonably competent to pack and adjust a bearing. And on this unit, I've had failures twice. Either I'm grossly incompetent (certainly possible), the shop that has sometimes done the maintenance is grossly incompetent (multiple shops over the years), or there's some other problem.

Presuming the people who've service the trailer in the past aren't grossly incompetent, when this thing goes back together it will have NEW bearings and races on all four corners, and hopefully there won't be any more excitement.
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Old 06-11-2024, 02:20 PM   #48
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FYI

A few years ago I was doing routine maintenance on our 5er and when wiping out the bearing races I found 4 out of 8 races loose and had been spinning inside the brake drum hub. This could have been a major catastrophy. All 4 were on the same axle which was a 6k lipert. I now have 7k Dexter axles on it with Dexter drums with cooling fins cast on them. This is something everyone should check when servicing wheel bearings.
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Old 06-19-2024, 07:31 AM   #49
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I haven't read this whole thread but as I look at the pictures you posted it appears to me that they did not service the axles like they said. I find it hard to believe the grease would look that bad with the few miles you put on it. This is why I still do most of my maintenance myself. It's piece of mind to know it has been done right. With age it's getting harder & harder to keep up with all of my toys so I dread the day I have to have somebody else do it. A lot of these guys in the shops now got fired from McDonalds because they couldn't do the fries right. Now they are working on your expensive toys. I had to laugh just last week. A new quicky lube place opened up in our neighborhood. From the exit door & all the way down the street was a path of oil. Apparently something didn't get tighten or was cross threaded & all of the new oil they put into the vehicle was now laying in the street. As others have said I would go through or have somebody trust worthy go through & make sure all of the other wheels are done correctly.
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Old 06-19-2024, 09:33 AM   #50
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I don't have a trailer anymore but read this story with empathy for OP. Given that this only happened to one wheel out of four, if the other three look OK then it's implied the issue was specific to the one wheel and not necessarily technique. So even if it was user error, it was a mistake vs improper procedure. It's tough when something you've done the same thing the same way countless times, then suddenly things go south. You're second guessing everything you did and you may never learn what the root cause was. So from now on every time you do this job there'll be that lingering doubt if you're doing it right, even if you meticulously verify each step. I've had the same bearing cone greaser for decades, there's no question new grease gets through between all the rollers. Maybe an option would be to use a different preload technique? I've never liked the hand torque/don't spin the hub methods, seems to leave too much to doubt. I like the ones where you use a torque wrench to preload, then back the nut off a flat or whatever, and uses an indexable keeper that you can pin to that exact spot. Takes all the guesswork out. Maybe there's an application note from the axle builder that describes a better method? Or maybe consult a shop that's done thousands of these for insight? Pressing forth on blind faith gets old, and it's not practical to be constantly servicing this stuff. Prevention is going to be the best way forward, just need to find out what the best practice is for this setup.

I'm not sure that even if a TPMS were to instantly report loss of communication that it would've changed this outcome, other than maybe knowing to go back to look for the wheel. Which after that trauma may not have been worth retrieving anyway. Maybe having a TMPS that reports temperature could've offered an indication of something amiss if the hub was heating appreciably before failure. At the end of the day a lot of this stuff runs on luck and a prayer, you do what you can and at the end of the day you regroup and keep pushing on.

Since this trailer traveled some distance at speed with one tire carrying 2x the load, I'd be looking at replacing that tire. That's a blowout story I would want to avoid.

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Old 06-19-2024, 03:50 PM   #51
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This is oh-so true.

Generally speaking, I've done my own work for the last 60+ years. For some of those years, I was a mechanic; starting out as a bicycle mechanic, mechanical engineering in college, didn't enjoy the engineering business, went back to mechanicking. Lots and lots of training along the way. I was appalled by the parts-changer mentality back in the 60's.

None the less, there are times when I just don't have the time, or jobs that suck and I decide to have someone else do, and some jobs that I simply don't have the equipment for, like tire mounting and balancing.

For example, last year I was readying for a quick RV trip to Eastern WA and ran out of time to change the oil in my Ram, so I ducked into the local JiffyLube with 3 gallons of oil and a Cummins filter. I've replaced the oil drain plugs with Fumoto valves in all of our vehicles, so that eliminates cross-threading or incorrectly tightening the drain plug problems. Ah, but JiffyLube can't stop trying to sell stuff the customer didn't ask for, so the alleged tech tries to sell me an air filter. Nope. But he totally screws up putting it back; half of the screws that secure the cover were installed at an angle so they didn't even go in the holes. Instead they stuck outside the filter housing, which also left a gap around the perimeter of the house - exactly the issue that the screws were designed to avoid.

Quote:
Originally Posted by PulNSerenity View Post
I haven't read this whole thread but as I look at the pictures you posted it appears to me that they did not service the axles like they said. I find it hard to believe the grease would look that bad with the few miles you put on it. This is why I still do most of my maintenance myself. It's piece of mind to know it has been done right. With age it's getting harder & harder to keep up with all of my toys so I dread the day I have to have somebody else do it. A lot of these guys in the shops now got fired from McDonalds because they couldn't do the fries right. Now they are working on your expensive toys. I had to laugh just last week. A new quicky lube place opened up in our neighborhood. From the exit door & all the way down the street was a path of oil. Apparently something didn't get tighten or was cross threaded & all of the new oil they put into the vehicle was now laying in the street. As others have said I would go through or have somebody trust worthy go through & make sure all of the other wheels are done correctly.
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Old 06-21-2024, 08:12 AM   #52
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There's ALWAYS the possibility that I did something wrong. I don't believe so, and having done the service many times over the last 30+ years of doing bearings on two 5th wheels, I'm reasonably confident it was done correctly. But, as I age, I'm less inclined to do things like grease bearings, so I'm likely going to have them done going forward.



Nonetheless, it failed. This time, the shop that will be installing the axle will ensure that all 4 wheels are correctly adjusted, packed, cleaned, blessed and given a wet kiss. AND a set of Hub Savers that I HOPE will NEVER be needed.



The other tire on the side with the axle failure WILL be replaced, even though State Farm doesn't think it needs to be.


At this point, we're stuck waiting on the axle from Dexter. They withdrew the funds over a week ago, which I presume means they've built the axle, but it still hasn't shown up at the shop.
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Old 06-22-2024, 08:16 AM   #53
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I know i'm chiming in on the tail end of this discussion, but am wondering why the TPMS wouldnt give an alarm when the wheel assembly left and the sensor went out of range of the receiver. curious because I have been weighing the pros and cons of adding a TPMS system to my 5th wheel.
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Old 06-29-2024, 05:41 PM   #54
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EVENTUALLY, it sort-of does. After enough time, the numbers in the display go blank where the wheel is missing. But, it can apparently take 20 minutes or more.


And there's NO alarm or indication of a problem, so you have to be looking at the display to notice there's not pressure value.


The TPMS have worked well on a number of occasions when we got a leak and the alarm worked, but it doesn't do anything when your wheel leaves for the Mojave desert.


And it doesn't appear the temperature changes enough to alarm on the tire temp.
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Old 06-29-2024, 06:49 PM   #55
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DK, if that were mine i would reverse engineer those axles by getting outside castle nuts, Matching Washers then drill a hole in the spindle end and go with cotter pins. Something that has worked on Millions of Cars,Trucks, trailers/rv's etc. JMHO but those "lock washers" are junk.
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Old 07-01-2024, 09:10 PM   #56
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Thanks for the thought. I don't think it was the keepers.



Going forward, the hubs all have Hub Savers, so if anything DOES fail it shouldn't be catastrophic.
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