Incredulous!!!

[Lazy-Ferret]

We are hoping to get away in the caravan next week, so time to get it out of mothballs.

I had a few jobs to do over the winter, and like has been mentioned in another thread, I have left them until the last minute...

First job was to sort out the split charger on the car, as it had died on our return journey last year. So I have been busy doing it another way, and running wires the length of the car.

Our Caravan is parked forward in the drive, between my T2 and the fence which had concrete posts and high gravel boards at the bottom. The Tow bar is furthest from the road, and just in front of the garage. Here I have a security bollard which locks into the ground, and has a towball mounted on it. The hitch of the caravan is locked to this bollard. Behind the caravan, we also have locked bollards, plus a wheel clamp on the caravan. Also the 4 steadies are all lowered, and for our caravan, you need an extended brace to reach the steady winders. Now I know that if someone is really determined, they will have it, but basically, we are making it pretty hard, so hopefully they will pick on someone else's rather than ours.

So, after sorting the car, I was about to start to check the caravan over, and first job was to go to the front locker and check the gas cylinders were OK, and the spare wheel had air in it. Now the Adria has a very long draw bar, with an area you can stand on between the hitch and the front of the van, so you have to lean across it, open than lift the locker, then you can sit on it to do what ever you want in comfort.

As I sat down, the jockey wheel fell over and landed at my feet... Obviously, I got up to have a proper look, and then noticed that the handle part, the bit that clamps to the draw bar and winds the jockey wheel up and down has been stolen... Not the actual wheel, or bottom metal section, just the handle part... They have literally undone the clamp and wound the handle down until it has completely unscrewed from the wheel, and lifted it out.

Why... what possible use can they have for just that bit?? :doh

Lucky I found out now, as it gives me time to find a new one, I would have been well p1553d if I had gone to hitch up and found it missing, as there is no way to get the caravan out of the drive with out the Jockey wheel.

[solarman216]

If it is anything like the one on my car trailer then if the wheel hits the ground when towing it gets bent making it difficult to turn the handle to get the wheel fully up, so steal one from another van, possible answer, Rick

[Lazy-Ferret]

If it is anything like the one on my car trailer then if the wheel hits the ground when towing it gets bent making it difficult to turn the handle to get the wheel fully up, so steal one from another van, possible answer, Rick
But it is normally the bottom bit that bends, not the handle part... If they had taken that bit, or more logically the whole thing, it would have made more sense.

Worst part is, there are a few different diameters, and of course I don't have the old one to measure. :doh

[zippy656]

My guess is they broke the pin in there one.

[zippy656]

My guess is they broke the pin in there one.


If i remember right. Either 42mm or 48mm

[rustic]

Might be best to engrave the chassis number in an obvious place on several parts of the caravan, then the thieves might think that every thing is security marked.
Also consider security screws on the lights too.
A few years back some thieving toe rag liked the look of one of our mooring ropes whilst it was on the marina, and undid it so he could use it....
Since then I have branded all the other ropes with the head of a security screw,with a couple of grind marks in, heated up in a flame and pressed into the end of the rope in several places, so unique, and I have also used smart water, and stuck labels on the windscreen too, also I have engraved the boat licence No. on the solar panels.
I have worked hard to pay for my things, what gives people the right to think that they can be a parasite in society and steal from others that have the same hobby.
I thought there was trust between caravaners, and trust between boat owners, all it shows that every group or society, or even forums have a general cross section of people from all walks of life, and with different moral backgrounds.
Rant over...:augie

[Lazy-Ferret]

Some good ideas there...

We have been pretty lucky, had a nice quality aluminium step stolen in France, so since then, I have always marked ours up, and made them so they can be chained up on public campsites. All the external bits, like aquarols and wastemaster are marked as well, so I thought I had done a pretty good job of making it secure... I even have the car Reg in 12" high digits on the roof, and plenty of mods to make it unique.

I just never imagined anyone would nick half a Jockey wheel.

Well the new one will be stamped and chained...

[Sweety]

Can't believe they nicked just 1/2 of it:eek: really feel for you's tho as sadly it's you who now has to foot the bill for something you didn't need to:( TBH never thought about having to chain up the likes of a caravan step or aqua roll but it seems a good idea:thumb2 luckily where we go camping we've never had any problems.

[Lazy-Ferret]

Can't believe they nicked just 1/2 of it:eek: really feel for you's tho as sadly it's you who now has to foot the bill for something you didn't need to:( TBH never thought about having to chain up the likes of a caravan step or aqua roll but it seems a good idea:thumb2 luckily where we go camping we've never had any problems.

We have never had a problem on club sites, which is what we normally camp on, but we also go to a lot of steam fairs, which tend to attract people from all walks of life, including a lot who tend to live more in, than out, of caravans. After seeing them patrolling the site eyeing things up, and having met a lot of people who have lost aquaroles, which seem to be a favourite, we lock everything up. We also have a rear awning, and put our Generator in there, all chained up, but lots of people put them out by draw bar, near the roadway, on a length of chain. Basically at some point in the day, when people are most likely to be away from the van, a pickup passes very slowly with a kid/teenager sitting in the back. It then comes back up the roadway, pauses, and then drives on. The kid had got out, and walked back, while the car turns round, and in the time the car is stopped, the generator is stopped, the chain and mains wire are cut and it is loaded into the back of the pickup and gone.

Ironically though, and touching wood, the only times we have lost something ourselves has been the step, on a municipal site in France, and a set of solar powered fairy lights, we used to mark the guy ropes on the rear awning at a steam fair. This was a few years ago, when they were still quite novel.

[rustic]

Well rather than start another thread, we have just been up again, as we have been since my op.. and suddenly at 4:15 am we had a phone call from my son in Scotland, his wife is pregnant and overdue so we thought we would be grandparents again, but the first for our son...
However...
he had just been burgled as they slept a few minutes before:doh

The police have been round and taken prints etc, but the burglar broke in through a downstairs window, and my son was awoken be a light moving around in the hall way, thinking his wife had got up, he went to look and came face to face with a scumbag burglar, my son shouted really loudly and the thief went out through the window. A smashed bottle of wine was found outside so with luck, if that can be linked to the toe rag...:doh

Oh boy...:eek:

[AlexD333]

Gun license would have sorted that out :sly

[jims-terrano]

Alex I think we all inderstand the sentiment there pal, I reckon a weapon is probably worst thing in that sort of circumstance. I know you were only saying it rather than meaning it really tho.
Rustic I think your son probably did the best thing by shouting and letting the burglar get away.

[rustic]

...Rustic I think your son probably did the best thing by shouting and letting the burglar get away.

You are so right, my wife and I discussed it, had our son say, had a baseball bat, and out of surprise and anger, actually used it, he would be the one in the dock.
It looks as though my son disturbed the burglar within seconds of him entering the house, and took nothing.
The worrying thing is, the room he broke into, is the new babies nursery, when the baby is born. The house is a dormer bungalow, with the main bedrooms downstairs. As the room was unoccupied, you could see through the blinds.
We told our son to nip out and buy some timers and table lights, and set them up ASAP, if his wife goes into labour, he might not have time to think about it.
They are also vacating the house soon, so there was a "to let" sign outside, which the burglar may have thought meant empty house... if the moron thought the house was empty... then why would he think there was anything in the house worth stealing!:doh Must have an IQ of about 1 or on drugs/alcohol.

[supergnome]

Well said jim.

[perelaar]

Came face to face with burglars in the stairway of our Brussels apartment years ago. Not very fun at all, luckily they ran off.

Since then we moved. Now we have decent doors and windows, and 2 large dogs roaming free in the house. No warning outside, of course ;)

[Lazy-Ferret]

Wow.... scary... that is one of those situations where you can never actually say how you would react, and having weapons to hand would have probably made the situation worse.. With any luck it will have put the fear of life in the guy who broke in, realising how close he was to getting caught.

I was just reading a story about a Guy who was mugged for his phone, he fought the mugger off, and then when the mugger ran away, went to call the police... as he dialled the mugger came back and shot him dead. The mugger was high on drugs..

As said, get some security products in there, only need a few time switches, and a couple of break glass alarms.

[rustic]

We just read his statement, and the scum bag actually smashed a wine bottle against the large double glazed window, smashing both panes, so now he has to get that fixed...:doh
Hopefully Landlords insurance will pay for that...

[Lazy-Ferret]

Well today is one of those first the good news, then the bad news types of day....

Late last night, I had an epiphany, I suddenly remember about 2 or 3 years ago, while at the Great Dorset Steam fair, I purchased a new jockey wheel for the box trailer I have been sparsely working on. So first thing this morning, I set to work finding where I had "safely" stored it. I eventually found it, weirdly stored inside the trailer it's self... Should have looked there first really...

Result, a nice shiney puenmatic tire jockey wheel. It still had the price tag on... £20... So the tyre was flat, but a quick fire up of the compressor and that can be fixed... I check it on the caravan and it fits perfectly... I am so lucky..

So, I pump the tyre up, 30psi, and stand it just inside the garage door. I decide not to actually fit it to the van, until the collar I have ordered to make it harder to remove, has arrived.

I then get on with finishing the Boot end of the wiring I was doing on the car, and dropping the tow ball into the lower holes on the towbar. I have been working on the car for about an hour, when there is this huge bang...:eek: I can honestly say I did jump big time.:augie I look around for what could have caused such a bang, and as I am doing this, Suz comes flying out the front door, plus several of the neighbours, asking what the bang was, and was I ok... I explain that it was not me, and I have no idea what it was, and then suddenly think about the Jockey wheel, which is laying on the floor of the garage 10 feet away, with the tyre and inner tube lacerated...

I have no idea why it decided to explode, there was nothing near it, but I do know I have several more grey hairs, and are back to the drawing board as far as a Jockey wheel goes..:(

[rustic]

Looks like the jockey wheel was for the high jump lol..
Are you sure it was 30 psi and not 30 bar lol....?:lol
I know you wouldn't make that error...:thumb2

Good job it didn't explode as you were inflating it, flying debris, and possible hearing loss could have been the outcome.
You were lucky.
I wonder if the tyre had reacted to any chemicals in the area.
I had a pair of shoes once, I left in a boat locker, and the following year, the soles were simply dust... I assumed the volatiles still in the GRP were to blame... but never proven.

[Lazy-Ferret]

Thats interesting, the sides of the trailer are fibreglass sheet, and the floor is that rubber coated resin board they use for horsebox floors. The wheel has been standing in the corner of the trailer for 2 or 3 years. The trailer is water tight, so it was not getting wet and pretty dark, so it is not the sun that got to it.

I looked at the tyre, and it has exploded, from the middle of the tread. One of the rips has gone nearly right to the bead on one side, and obviously, the inner tube has shredded.

When I was at collage, we had to watch a health and safety video on the dangers of inflating tyres, but I did not think a 8" tyre at 30 PSI was going to be much of a danger. WRONG... as you say, if it had gone when I was holding it and inflating it, I would have had sore fingers, if I was lucky!!:eek:

[perelaar]

Not much fun that! Would it be possible to replace the inner tube and tyre?

Had the same once inflating the front tyre on my mountainbike. At the normal pressure the aluminum wheel rim burst, metal fatigue most likely. Gave me a big scare, and made my change all the rims on all the bikes in the house.

[rustic]

There is a lot of stored energy in compressed air, say compared to a hydraulic system.
With a hydraulic system you don't have to release much fluid to depressurise it, but with air... there is a lot of stored air.

It is always safer to pressure test items with liquid, than air.

Now go back half a century, and think about steam trains, here you have compressed steam at high pressure and temperature, that is far more dangerous than air on it's own.
Added to that, you have a massive fire burning flat out, that can continue adding more energy to the system.

[Lazy-Ferret]

Not much fun that! Would it be possible to replace the inner tube and tyre?

Had the same once inflating the front tyre on my mountainbike. At the normal pressure the aluminum wheel rim burst, metal fatigue most likely. Gave me a big scare, and made my change all the rims on all the bikes in the house.

When I first started caravaning, I was told to get a pneumatic jockey wheel as they were so much better than all the others, allowing the caravan to be pushed into position a lot easier on grass etc. I never had any issues with the normal type, so never bothered.

Then I got a motor mover, and was again told that a pneumatic one was better for the mover, as it gave it less work, which in turn saved your battery, so I finally got one. I can't say if it made the caravan any easier to move, as far as I could see, it was just another tyre to have to keep checking the pressure on and a dam fiddly one at that.

We have a small step/ramp from the road, down on to the drive where the caravan parks, and as the caravan goes in front first, the Jockey wheel has a little bump as it goes down this. I used it all summer with no problems, then one freezing cold night, I was returning the caravan to the drive, and as the jockey wheel went down the little step, it blew out, shattering the plastic rim with it. I actually always assumed that the plastic rim had failed by going brittle in the cold as it was about minus 10, and was that year when the temperature had not got above freezing for about 10 days. Anyway, what ever gave out left me with a caravan half across the road, in the dead of night, with no way to easily move it.

After that, I went back to the good old trusty wide plastic wheel for many years, and have not had any problems.

The only reason I bought this pneumatic one was because it was brand new, and cheap, plus at the time, I just wanted something to make the trailer easier to move round as I was building it, and then never got round to using it.:doh

Anyway, I have managed to get the old plastic wheel into the new pneumatic frame, so with a bit of help from Mr Heath Robinson, I have something that will work.

[AlexD333]

Back on burglar subject, as weapons may not be a good idea, if your gonna leave a trace that is :augie

Then Fort Knox is the next best thing.

Make the house impregnable :sly

What you really want is a pig farm... Then just some hydrochloric acid for the remaining teeth :augie