Bust Axle -- Pictures and story (WARNING: Big pics, dial-up beware!)

Well, some days you eat the dragon, and some days the dragon eats you. And then there are those days when you declare it a draw and have a pleasant picnic lunch together.

Trolled a Bandit 300 in 14-25 FOW at 8-12 feet. This is where all the crappie were hanging, or so it seemed. Caught two good size spotted (Kentucky Bass) and about 10 bazillion little ones. The day was wonderful and pleasant and a grand day was had by all, despite a broken axle.

What?!?

Yup, see the pictures below for a shot of the band aid we put on it.

Pulled all the way to Lake Winona (about 9 miles of dirt road, 4 miles good, 5 miles not bad, boat ramp area is filled with pot holes).

Pulled to withing about 200 yds of boat ramp and had the windows down and heard a loud squeaking. Sounded like a bearing failure so I pulled over and looked. Nope, bearings are cool, but passenger side wheel is leaning in badly at the top and rubbing the trailer.

Pulled to the ramp parking area and inspected more closely. Axle was 2/3 broken through and threatening to just let go completely.

Took the passenger side pole guide off and used the ell and u-bolts to band-aid her up till we could get home. Well, most folks would have given up at that point, but not us. We went ahead and launched and had a nice day fishing. We had no phone service, no one was around, and not likely to be around till about noon time (it was 6:30 AM) so screw it, we fished!

Shot of leaning tire after the repair and after the safe tow home.

http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/632...7695005417.jpg

Picture of my band aid. You can see the ell placed on top of the axle, the socket I used to space the ell off the axle and the bracket normally used to hold the ell down on top of the frame holding the axle up and in position. Only 1/3 of the steel on this axle was still there, the rest had torn and the whole thing was threatening to break into two pieces.

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Another shot of the band aid. Here you can see the leaf spring to the far right, the two u-bolts holding the bracket to the bottom of the axle and the bend in the ell. The bracket at the top is a roller and the one in the center is a bunk bracket, aft of the axle.

http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/862...7685025957.jpg

And this is why we decided to keep fishing! We literally must have caught 50 of these little boogers, from about 1lb down to this size on #4 hooks! Crickets and BASS minnows!!
http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/292...4226240407.jpg

This little jewel was only 1/4 again as big as the biggest minnow we were using! Crazy!

Talk about having good fortune smiling on us today. Pulled 45 miles to the turn off, then 9 miles of dirt road, find busted axle, patch busted axle, fish, have a blast, pull out, remove everything from the boat and stow in back of truck, including the outboard (18HP Nissan, weights 115lbs), one series 31 battery, 1 8U series battery, tackle rods, cooler blah blah blah, etc, etc.

Pulled 45 miles of paved road and 9 miles of dirt with the patch and made it home, into the driveway and she's still holding fine. WHEW!!

It was a good day.

Modified by Fish Taco at 7:54 PM 7/18/2009