Guys. Guyssssss. I've done some stupid stuff driving my truck and trailer over the years. Basically all of which is recorded here on ye olde blogge for posterity.
We have, in no particular order:
- Blown the brake lines a few times.
- Killed the battery tonsss.
- Cruised down the highway with the trailer doors wide open, flapping in the breeze.
- Punched a quarter-sized hole in the trailer tire sidewall.....
Ya know. Some stuff. It happens. So. Rather than try to recount for you my latest.... incident... in any sort of narrative form, I present to you the full story as told in pictures. All I can say is... Thank god for friends who actually know things!
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| Photo Close Up #1 :: The emergency cable itself |
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| Photo Close Up #2 :: a shot directly into the brake control box on my trailer frame |
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| Photo Close Up #3 :: Found the weird little detached plastic plug on the ground underneath the hitch |
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| Photo Close Up #4 :: Weird little plastic plug back in its house, minus the connective emergency cable |
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Siiiiiiiigh. I **hate** when I do dumb stuff like that.
But, eh, at least I was just detaching the truck to use it separately from the trailer. And the parts can be easily replaced. And I have plenty of time to do said replacing. And I have knowledgeable friends who could quickly guide me back to finding that weird little plastic plug thing.
Nbd, thankfully!
In the meantime, learn from my mistakes kiddos!! Or just laugh at my idiocy, your choice ;)
This was helpful....when I got my trailer inspected in the spring the shop somehow wired the cable to my truck frame and long story short I did the same thing :D
ReplyDeleteClarifying it was hard wired with no way of removing, I am aware it does normally loop to the frame/hitch for safety lol
DeleteDude for real tho haha I think I’m learning the hard way that “being aware of how something should be or work” apparently does NOT translate to actually knowing the nuts and bolts. I’ve hooked this trailer up countless times since buying it in 2017, and have obvi always been aware of the breakaway cable… but never knew about the little plastic plug LOL
DeleteBeen there, done that. Very grateful my brother is a mechanic lol
ReplyDeleteOh man, right ?? That’s one of the serious benefits of my boarding barn is that there’s always *somebody* around who knows what they’re doing LOL
DeleteThis is totally something I would do. The other day I drove my very expensive tractor away from my rather valuable mower without disconnecting the PTO from the tractor. Fortunately PTO shafts are designed to come apart so it was easy to put back together, but it was the kinda dumb Nicole mistake that could have turned out much worse!
ReplyDeleteUgh right ?? They’re the simplest mistakes to avoid but yet I always end up making them… at least the consequences are relatively low ????
DeleteWould it make you feel better if I told you I broke my truck's back window the first time I tried to practice driving my trailer around? And also that it wasn't actually my truck?
ReplyDeleteEither way, this little mishap is pretty common. Don't beat yourself up!
omg i spent all day yesterday and the day before towing flatbeds full of xc jumps around open fields, just WAITING for one of them to come sliding through my truck bed lol.... (luckily the person loading said flatbed is a professional and kept everything super safe!)
DeleteOoh! A client at the yard did the same thing, but they ripped the entire plug off the wires. Such a mess! Glad yours was an easy fix. - Firn
ReplyDeleteooooh that sounds awful ugh haha. it's amazing to me how much there is to know about the finer points of all this stuff that you might not ever really have any reason to know unless it either happens to you or somebody tells you!
DeleteThat is such an easy fix, but for someone who doesn't know how it works, it does look daunting. Yay for friends how know what's up! The screenshots really do make the story lol. Don't beat yourself up, it is hard to know everything but you will get there HA!
ReplyDeletelol true story -- sometimes i write about stuff like this not to give myself a hard time, but rather to share my experiences so that somebody else who might have the same thing happen to them in the future will have remembered reading about it. it's how the hive mind works!
DeleteI have totally done that. Once because I forgot and my friend fixed it. Another time because it looped back over the hitching ball and I didn't notice. That time it was just the cable broke and we replaced it.
ReplyDeleteugh apparently it really is that common! i was telling another friend about it the other day, and was like "RIP to your dead battery!" which made me be even more grateful that i realized it happened immediately. bc apparently without that little plug instrted, the battery is activated to hold the brakes. too much time activated (like if i'd gotten all the way home and THEN realized the cable trailing from my bumper) and the battery will straight up die -- rendering it useless in the event of an actual trailer separation emergency.... who knew! lol...
DeletePHEWF!
ReplyDelete