As you may know from my previous posts, I’m transporting oak logs to a sawmill from my home in the Chicago area to Michigan. I’m using my dumpster trailer along with my Dodge 3500 dually. Total trailer weight is around 14,000 pounds. My dually can easily pull this load, but driving requires quite a bit of finesse, as the trailer has a mind of its own, and wants to keep moving.
To minimize safety risks I always check the rig before starting, have replaced worn tires and have done other precautions to make sure that everything is in tip-top shape.
On Friday I brought another load to Michigan. After unloading the logs it was noticed that the right rear tire on the trailer looked low. A check yielded a tire pressure of around 25 PSI instead of its pre-trip pressure of 80 PSI! Further exploration showed that I picked up a roofing nail. Luckily, I planned ahead and brought with me the things that I needed to repair the tire on the spot. Even luckier was the fact that the tire didn’t fail when I was hauling the logs. A sudden shift in weight could have been disastrous.
