Nothing is ever easy, even cedar

[caveman]

We have been low on large, high quality cedar slabs for months.  Saturday morning JMoore and I drove to his father in law's place north of Eufaula, Alabama to look for some decent cedar trees to cut.  We live in Lakeland, Fl which is about seven hours away.  When we arrived, we scoped out a few candidates to harvest.  The first one we cut was really good-very little rot and five 8' logs.  The next three were large but had more rot within. 

With his father in law on his tractor loading the logs and John and I limbing the trees, we were able to load my little trailer.  We all went back in to Eufaula to have supper and prepared to leave early Sunday morning to head home.  We left around 4:45 a.m.

This is when the challenge began.  About an hour away from the plantation, It felt like I was dragging an anchor and nothing but a shower of orange sparks appeared in my right mirror.  I quickly pulled onto the shoulder of the dark road.  Both right side tires were destroyed.  Before we left on the trip, I just had my 7.50/16 tires replaced with new E rated radials (I got 500 miles on those two).  We determined the sidewalls of the radials flex more than the old bias ply tires and rubbed on my fenders when we were hitting bumps in the road and expansion joints on some of the bridges enough to compromise the sidewalls. 

We had a spare but not two.  After jacking up the trailer, removing both of the destroyed tires and installing the one spare, we tied up the axle without a tire and tried to limp into Albany, Ga which was 40 or so miles up the road.  Realize, all this occurred at 5-6 a.m. on a Sunday morning in south Georgia.  We figured the only place that might have the tire size we needed would be Sam's Wholesale which did not open until 10.  After slowing driving 10 miles or so dragging the three wheeled trailer John noticed more sparks.  Thankfully these were only from the axle u-bolt ends contacting the pavement.  We pulled off the road, ran a chain and a lock through the two wheels that had tires that were not flat, unhooked the trailer and drove in to Albany.  The Firestone store was open for business and by 8 a.m. they had some new tires of a relatively similar size and E-rating mounted on my wheels. 

The two of us drove back to the trailer which was 30 or so miles in the wrong direction from my house to install the new tires.  We removed the passenger side fender and hooked back up and headed for home.  We drove slowly and checked the load and the tires frequently.  We had a 34 hour round trip, pulling into my yard around 4 p.m. on Sunday afternoon.

Today we sawed some nice and some not so nice cedar slabs.   

  

  

  

  

 

We also spent a good portion of the afternoon tinkering with the panel on our solar kiln that we made a skid steer attachment for.  JMoore will have to post pics tomorrow.  It is actually pretty cool.
Caveman

[Magicman]

It's amazing how good ERC can be when it is good and then how bad.........

[4x4American]

Sometimes you're the train, sometimes you're the track.  At least ya made it!

[Chuck White]

Nice load of Cedar!   8)

[Solomon]

Murphy's Law,  If anything CAN go wrong,  IT WILL ,  and at the worst possable moment.   I'm glad to know that you made it home safely.   I went after a load of walnut about 5 hours away from my home a couple of years ago.  Thankfully that trip was trouble free.   We did get stopped on the way up but the Virginia State Trooper was a trainee who had a 9 foot tall super master sargent with her.
That guys knuckles dragged on the ground and he had a dozen hash marks down the forearms of both his shirt sleeves.  She decided not to write me for the expired inspection sticker on the trailer as well as the marker light that was out.   So all and all, it was a positive expierence.

[outpost22]

You might try adding a tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS) to your truck and trailer. I had a boat tire disintegrate at the worst possible time last fall on the interstate coming down off a summit.  Before my next trip with any of my 4 trailers,  I'm adding it.
Here is a sample of one:
http://www.amazon.com/6-Tire-Flow-Through-Sensor-Pressure-Monitoring/dp/B0131JZIK8/ref=sr_1_36?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1458659482&sr=1-36

[caveman]

Today we moved the fenders in an inch on each side.  This will give the new tires plenty of room but will decrease my ability to haul wider vehicles without removing the fenders.  In the past, to haul a one ton truck, I would remove one fender.  Now I suppose I will have to remove both (10 bolts instead of five).  My '74 bronco on 36" swampers with 10" wide wheels and my Kubota M7040 should still fit between the fenders. 
Caveman