Check your spare tire cables i lost my spare goin down the highway at about 60 mph cable broke !!!!
the bad part is i was towing i brand new 5th wheel from the factory to the dealership wiped out the bottom of the trailer and the frame and the back bumper so make sure there good!!

 

Was the cable rusted? Any clues why it broke? I want to know if I should look for anything in particular when I check mine.

Thanks,
Chris

 

id love to kbow why it broke also my suspicion is that it was rusted in the spool

 

The cable rusting though where it attaches to the plate on the bottom isn't all that uncommon especially in salt areas.
Good idea to check your spare aside from the cable breaking is that they are a frequent object of theft. Many folks don't know they're missing till they need it.

 

many people dont check for air in them either and they are flat when they want to use them....

I cannot get my spare to the ground...... any suggestions?

 

Quote:

I cannot get my spare to the ground...... any suggestions?

Try letting the air out of your rear tires

 

ahh there ya go thats a thought lol

 

Here we go with red neck logic!

 

I always worried about this with the bigger, heavier tires on there. I tried doing a search some months ago trying to find a heavier duty lift for this but came up blank.

 

Someone might want to make a extra brace to keep the tire up under the truck... Kinda like the old Dodge pickups had in the day...

 

I never game mine in my Toyota a second thought, until I had a blow out going up the canyon.

Couldn't get that bugger down to save my life, luckily I was part of a 3 car caravan, so I just unloaded the trunk of the 3rd car, threw my blowout in there, and headed down the canyon to the closest Discount Tires, and got a freebee since I paid a little extra for the road hazard warrantee.

Went on the camping trip, then when I got home I soaked everything with WD40 for two days and finally got it down.

Kept the spare in the bed till I sold the truck.

Current truck, the spare is too big to fit under there, so it's in the bed as well.


phox

 

All I have to say is

(The short story is my spare fell off too. Cable snapped. )

Until a few days ago, I had a cable lock around my spare tire. I took it off to hook it up to some raggedy old spare with a used tire that is mounted on my trailer. You can see where this is going....

I had to take my triple axle 48 foot car trailer to my house to do some grinding and it only had 4 of the 6 tires on it (first 2 axles).

I'm driving along, about 1 mile away from my parking spot (at a truck yard 15 minutes from my house) and some guy honks at me YOU LOST A TIRE!!!!!

So I stop and look around. The 2 wheels from the 3rd axle are firmly strapped down on top of the trailer. The spare tire is firmly strapped down and sitting on the studs. I figured he was talking about the missing tires from the 3rd axle that I had taken off ON PURPOSE.

I notice that with my hazards on... the left blinker is going but, not the right. After tinkering around for a few minutes on the side of the road I wired up the right to the left (so that the hazards work) and drive back to my parking spot.

The next day today, I started diagnosing the wiring problem... I checked the voltage at the junction box and it looked ok +12v flashing. So the problem must be somewhere between the box and the lamp right? I checked it at the lamp +2v flashing. So I do some continuity tests and start cutting out portions of the wire to try to see where it might be snagged or partially grounded.

I get to the front of the trailer, check the voltage again at the junction box and now it's only +2v. Nothing is making sense WTH is going on here? Finally I get to the 7 way socket on the truck itself...and realize there is something missing!!!!!!!!!!!!! I DID lose a tire yesterday, MY SPARE. Brand new wheel and brand new tire And it took with it the splice from the right turn signal on my truck to the 7 way socket and left a nice stranded piece of cable.

MORAL of the story is don't trust the DC spare tire holder. This is my fault for taking my cable lock off. If it had been on I would've noticed it all cockeyed the next time I stopped (I don't have a bed on my truck).

Better yet, I called the police from the town where it happened and told them about it. I wanted to make sure that if something happened to someone or someones car or anything, that I make everything OK, as this is technically my fault, and that is probably technically "leaving from the scene of an accident" even if I didn't realize it. They told me to come in and file a report. So I drive all the way over and they tell me to come back on Monday to talk to some other idiot who only works 1 day a week

 

i took a big trip for 6 weeks to savanah GA to work at the hopsital there last fall...and before i went checked to see if my spare was good to go...so i tried taking it off...i snapped the mechanism just by turning the bar and couldnt get nothing down...so i had to pry the tire out of there and chained it to the box...point is those things will rust on u..break..seize..whatever so check regularly..prolly wouldnt hurt to grease it up time to time..with white grease or whatever

ps im still driving with the spare in the back of the pick-up , a heavy chain and a big lock...

 

The last time I went to check my spare i let it down and checked it out then got it almost cranked back up when it quit and would not move in any direction. I kept working with it until i got a little slack and managed to cut the end of the cable off with a dremmel and got the spare down. Where the rod went into the cable spool some sort of pin had stripped. I put it back with a heavy cotter pin and ran the cable through the keeper that was at the end and cinched it down with a cable cinch. So far so good but you all are making me nervous about losing the spare. I may rig up some kind of a back up to be sure the tire does not fall off if the cable fails or the cable spool fails.
what is going to happen next to eat up my weekends.

 

Poor snow belt people!!