Thread: Woe Is The Life Of Chasing Crappie/pics

Today was the good and the bad. The good was the fishing. Another fine catch of Slabs. Around 70 today. I took a few white perch home for dinner. My new motor has been not holding place when trim is raised. I took a moment to adjust the setting and had a strange odor in my nose. Like something burning. Thought nothing of it and towed home. I went to look at the trim adjustment again and had that odor come back to me. As I walked around the boat I found the odor. Right side wheel bearings were gone. At least I was home. I always replace the bearings and seals in the spring. By gone I mean no bearings left at all. How I got home I don't know.

From the rust on the axle it looks like it might have been a serious lack of grease issue. Glad you made it home. I usually have something like that come up miles from the house.

The boat and trailer I sold last fall hadn't seen a ton of miles since I live so close to KY lake. I went several years just checking my bearing buddies and adding lithium grease occasionally. One Sunday afternoon I decided to jump in after church and put new rear seals and repack my trailer bearings. One side went flawless. When I tried to get the axle nut off the other side, it wouldn't budge! I ended up borrowing a socket big enough to use my impact gun on it. When it finally came off, I found out the nut had been cross-threaded from the factory from day one. Being Sunday, no tool rental places that might have a fine-thread die were open. I ended up finding one from a friend who is an electrical contractor. I chased the threads and got it back together but if that had happened on the side of the road somewhere, no telling what I would have gone thru to get it fixed.