Safety and high milage
Posted: 29 Sep 2013 16:39
After one of my old Safari pickups destroyed a Toyota bakkie last week ( it was the other guys fault) , I was prompted to relate some safety related incidents.
I was the first to fit 33" muds to one of my Safarie"s way back in the early eighties. Bigger wheels equals larger inertia and steering loads on the whole steering system. At about 500k km of mostly off road workhorse duty and high speed trips home for weekends , one of the tie rod ends ( the main one between the idler arm and two wheels) dislocated on a recce trip up a dry river bed in the blouberge near Alldays. No steering in a remote area.
The wear on that joint was enough to let the ball fall out of the housing! I pushed the joint back together and put a tie wrap around it and had to drive back to Pretoria like that because no replacement parts could be found. That truck is now on 680k km and going strong. (new tie rod though)
I check my vehicles regularly and there was no obvious play on that joint prior to the incident.
On a few occasions I have lost back wheels at speed due to the floating type wheel bearing failing and melting off the sideshaft ! These vehicles have permanent loads bolted on and work very hard. I regularly check and or replace these bearings and these failures occurred without warning.
Bottom line: Our trucks are well designed , but we sometimes modify and overstress them. They will last a long time , but old high mileage cars will need more than routine maintenance to keep them safe. Especially steering and brakes.
I was the first to fit 33" muds to one of my Safarie"s way back in the early eighties. Bigger wheels equals larger inertia and steering loads on the whole steering system. At about 500k km of mostly off road workhorse duty and high speed trips home for weekends , one of the tie rod ends ( the main one between the idler arm and two wheels) dislocated on a recce trip up a dry river bed in the blouberge near Alldays. No steering in a remote area.
The wear on that joint was enough to let the ball fall out of the housing! I pushed the joint back together and put a tie wrap around it and had to drive back to Pretoria like that because no replacement parts could be found. That truck is now on 680k km and going strong. (new tie rod though)
I check my vehicles regularly and there was no obvious play on that joint prior to the incident.
On a few occasions I have lost back wheels at speed due to the floating type wheel bearing failing and melting off the sideshaft ! These vehicles have permanent loads bolted on and work very hard. I regularly check and or replace these bearings and these failures occurred without warning.
Bottom line: Our trucks are well designed , but we sometimes modify and overstress them. They will last a long time , but old high mileage cars will need more than routine maintenance to keep them safe. Especially steering and brakes.
?