The old saying says, "A picture is worth a thousand words." Based on the picture of Rusty Ward's police car it's easy to understand why trailers are as much a part of the La Carrera Panmamericana as the cars.
One reason Carroll Shelby and I gotten along so well over the years is because of my unwillingness to put my Shelby on a trailer when going to a car show whether it be a show-n-shine or a full blown Concours deElegance. And don't kid yourself, I won many best of shows doing it. While Carroll was handing me the best of show at the Palm Springs three-day weekend tribute to Carroll Shelby he told everyone that this was what he had intended when he originally built them years ago... to have the crap beat out of them.
But this time foir obvious reasons things are a little different this trip and it's time to get Lucky's trailer ready to take him on his adventure. The last thing we need is to be stuck along the road somewhere with a trailer problem so today I began making sure all the "important" mechanical stuff of the trailer is in perfect working order. The first thing I did was tear all four wheels off and get some new ones and mount the new trailer tires that came last week. Then I went to the local trailer shop to buy all new wheel bearings and seals and some other trailer goodies. To my surprise I couldn't believe how huge the wheel bearings in that old trailer were. The old timer at the trailer shop said, "Now THAT's a trailer wheel bearing. They don't build them like that any more." So on his recommendation I repacked the same ones and simply bought one back-up set and all new seals. While I was there I bought a new handle for the lift and some other goodies including new receiver locks for security reasons per Gerie Bledso's recommendation.
While we were chatting I mentioned that because the trailer and car were so lite that I was not going to worry about hooking up the electric brakes on this trailer and we have never used them anyway. You can't imagine how surprised I was when he explained that any trailer that hauls over 3000 pounds is required to have brakes and if it was caught by a patrolman on an Interstate they would probably make me take it off the road. At that point I decided it would be less worry to just take care of it now so I bought the new magnets for my trailer which he had in stock. The truth is feel a lot safer now and why should I build a great car and not be willing to give some attention to the trailer anyway?
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