We first started camping with a used pop up in the late 70’s. On our second trip with it we were headed to Trough Creek, a distance of about 80 plus miles from our home, with a another family and their camper. This camper had disk brakes with a surge braking system. New with this system, I had adjusted the surge system too tight, unbeknown to me. About 15 mile out at 55 MPH all the sudden I heard a giant bang.
I started pulling over but was not able to get the other family’s attention that something happened for we were following them. I noticed the camper was lower on one side so I knew I blew a tire. Luckily I was right at an exit so off I went and over into a truckers parking area.
Once I got out to look at the problem, I saw the right camper tire was in shreds, the dust caps of both wheels were blown off and smoke was coming from the brakes. The brakes were too tight and got so hot that it blew the tire and dust caps off the wheels. Luckily the other tire didn’t blow. They were so hot that we had to wait at least an hour and a half to let them cool naturally so that we could work on it. About 15 minutes after we pulled in the parking area our friends pulled in and said they lost sight of us and figured we had trouble.
Upon examining the wheels we also noticed there was no more grease in the bearings. While it cooled down we took our friend’s car and went to find grease. After pulling the wheel that the tire was blown on, I noticed the bearings were a little blue. We repacked the bearings, hoping they would stay together, put the spare tire on, and duct-taped dixie cups to the hubs to act as dust caps.
Ok, 2 hours later all was well and I pulled away and after about 10 feet of travel I feel the front tire on the car was bumping up and down like I was running over something big. So I stopped and found a large 3/4 inch bolt straight into the front tire. So again, I had to go to work putting the car spare on. Finally we got going, used up all of my spares but, the rest of the trip with out any further problems.
It was enough to make you turn around and go home and sell the camper. But we stayed on and have been thru that pop up and in our second trailer.
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