my first trailer snafu.....

Well. It finally happened. I bought my first trailer, a Calico 2-horse bp stock trailer, new in the spring of 2014. Then my second trailer, the Cotner (also a 2-horse bp), new in the fall of 2016 to accommodate Charlie's bronto-dimensions.

There are a lot of pros and cons to consider when shopping for a new vs used trailer, the details of which will depend very highly on your own personal preferences, resources, experiences, etc. For me, buying new worked well for my purposes bc I could:

a) get exactly what I wanted;
b) finance (tho this is an option at dealerships that sell used trailers too); and
c) get something that would be reasonably reliable on the road without me needing a ton of know-how when it comes to maintenance, upkeep, or DIY repairs.

yep, that there is a big old hole in the sidewall, plus another large laceration by the rim. baby was FLAT

Tho as we all know, being on the road will always eventually mean running into some sort of issue.

Like my 18 year old Chevy Silverado - which has had a few small issues of its own (who could forget our epic dead-battery-turned-brutal-betrayal last winter???) and requires more of a delicate touch when it comes to maintenance.

My trailers tho have been pretty low maintenance. Sure, the first (and last) time I loaned out my Calico, it came back to me with a giant dent from getting jack-knifed (and also full of manure bc the borrowers failed to even bother to muck it out. WTF don't be like that, kids!). And sure, I broke my leg stepping out of it that one time.... Which was obvi also a moment just filled with fuckery.

Mostly tho, my trailer experiences have been blissfully clear of any really serious trouble (with just the added assistance of a little dielectric grease every now and then!).

this thing. if you haul, you should have.

So imagine my surprise yesterday when we parked and prepared to unload at the gorgeous Windurra for a low key cross country school (omg! post coming soon!), and Brita immediately says "Omg your tire is completely flat with a giant hole!"

Which did, in fact, prove to be an accurate description of the situation. Hmmm. V Interesting.

It's not even really clear when, exactly, it happened. Possibly on the highway during the ~1hr drive to Windurra? Idk. In any case, it was certainly not gonna return to the road in that condition.

Nbd tho. I figured it would be an easy fix (and it was!) so rather than freak out, we just continued on with getting ready for our ride and heading out, planning to deal with the tire afterward.

ditto the above. these two tools are basically a one-stop-shop, and are available for cheap on amazon

There are all sorts of safety lists out there preaching on all the various tools and safety supplies one must always, always, ALWAYS have handy while hauling horses. I'll be the first to admit that many of these stated experts on the subject would find my own assortment of supplies somewhat deficient in this regard.

As it is, tho, slowly over the years I've amassed a respectable collection of said supplies that have mostly sat unused in pristine condition in either the back of my truck or in my trailer's cubby trunk.

Chief among these supplies would be: the easy-up Trailer Aid tire jack, and the 4-way tire iron for removing lug nuts. Which, for the record, was the beginning and end of what was needed for this job. Also on hand had it been needed was some WD-40, but again the nice thing of having a relatively new vehicle is that there's virtually no rust anywhere.

a spotter was very helpful for getting up onto the jack

I'm gonna recount the process we went through here, simple as it was, just bc we had a couple starts and stops that were nbd but might be useful to say here for anybody else in the same situation.

First of all, upon returning from schooling (again, post soon!), getting my horse sponged and settled and studs out, it was time to switch my attention to the tire.

My plan was simple: Get the horses away from the trailer (Brita would hold them), get the trailer up on the jack, horses could then be tied on the other side, get the lug nuts of busted tire off (pro tip: a hoof pick works like a charm to pop off that little hub cap thingy covering the lug nuts - there's a small notch around the edge that Rachael spotted that is perfectly sized for a hoof pick), replace with the spare, drop from jack, boom, success.

Those of you who have done this before might immediately recognize our first error in logic here: You're supposed to loosen the lug nuts before you put the vehicle up on the jack, bc otherwise the tire just spins. Like, I *knew* this, but ya know. It was hot and it's been a while.

Nbd. I dropped the trailer back off the jack again and went to loosen the lug nuts again. But damn they were on reeeeeally tight and the wheel still kinda wanted to spin (it was so flat it had plenty of clearance from the ground) plus it was hot AF and extremely sunny to boot.

teamwork makes the dream work! and yes, that's a bottle of champagne in the foreground lol, and in the blue solo cup....

So: Change of plans. I decided to pause to relocate the trailer into a shady spot. HIGHLY WORTH IT OMG. Seriously. This made everything else so much better (ie less full of fuckery). But that wheel still wanted to spin instead of hold steady against the force needed to loosen the lug nuts.

Luckily we had a pretty solid hive mind synergy working out, and Brita thought that if we put the horses back on the trailer they'd provide the weight needed to firmly ground the flat tire.

Initially I had not liked the idea of a horse being in the trailer while on the jack, but then again had this happened on the highway there's NO WAY I would ever, ever, ever want to unload the horses unless 1,000% necessary, so they would have been on the trailer anyway. So back on they went, and again this proved perfect in getting that wheel solidly enough on the ground so that I could get purchase with the tire iron to loosen the lug nuts.

There are 5 lug nuts on the rim, and another 3 on the spare (tho the spare was blessedly not so tight on) and we all divvied up the nuts. I did the first 4 and Brita and Rachael tag teamed the remaining 4. Plus 500 for teamwork, yo!

Once the nuts were loosened, we got the trailer back up onto the jack, and then it was most definitely time for champagne haha (bc doesn't everybody bring champagne to your standard xc school???? lol).

magnetic tray from my stud kit ftw!!! one of these things is not like the others haha

Fun fact: my magnetic tray from my stud kit proved extremely useful for holding the lug nuts while we worked. And once they were all removed, the tire popped right off the rim, as did the spare, and it was an easy process of switching them.

Side Note: I've had some serious issues with my regular daily driver Mazda sedan, that's had two bad flats in the last 9 years) with the tire rusting to the rim. Googling how to solve this problem yielded ideas like loosening the nuts then rolling the vehicle back and forth. This.... did not work. Neither did taking a mother fucking sledge hammer to the wheel. Ahem. 

But the second time it happened was at Charlie's last h/j barn, and the family of guys that did all the barn work there had my back. Instead of just applying brute force (a la sledge hammer) to a single small area of the tire, they put a 2x4 (which I use as supports for my trailer jack when unhitched) against the bottom of the tire, and hit THAT with the hammer. The 2x4 works to distribute the force more broadly across the tire, and *POP* it came right off. A little WD-40 helped with this too. It was a handy trick and one I was happy to have in mind should we have needed it for the trailer. But we didn't, the tire came right off, and the spare went right on. 

Again it was useful to have extra hands here, as the tire is kinda big and heavy, but lining it up with the screws was challenging. So Brita supported the weight of the tire while I guided it onto the screws. Then everything got tightened up again.

The rule of thumb with tightening lug nuts (of which, again, there are 5) is to alternate nuts. Do 1, skip to 3, skip to 5, skip to 2, skip to 4, skip to 1, etc etc etc, round and round, until they're all equally tightened. Again, we took turns with this - with me getting them all prettttty tight, then asking Rachael and Brita to each take a turn finishing them off.

ta da!! all better! with busted spare hangin out for replacement later

So yea. It honestly was not an extremely stressful ordeal, luckily, bc I already knew how to change a tire, had the appropriate tools, plus had friends on hand to help out. Thus making a situation that could have been a major bummer actually not such a big deal.

And for that, I'm grateful. And am hopeful that maybe it'll be another four years before I have to deal with any similar situation haha.

Have you had similar experiences? Or maybe yours worked out less easily, for lack of an important tool you didn't know you needed, for instance?

Had any lessons learned the hard way that would be useful to share with the rest of us? I'm all ears - it's always nice to hear about useful tools or supplies to have on hand in the rare event of an emergency.... Or are you just impatient to hear about schooling at Boyd Martin's Windurra facility?? lol....