Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 47
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

Posted Images

:(

Is this the same GTR that had a lucky escape at Calder Park, on a WRX track day, in Feb?

If not, i also remember seeing another very neat silver 34GTR at Sandown.

Good luck with the repairs, all the best.

PS: AU's suck!! Mine has gone through 2 auto transmissions, one gas converter, 3 dash inserts, numerous gasket seal, etc. The only thing worse than the AU, are the mechanics at the Ford dealerships :D. But as i stated b4; It's all good when it is free :yes:

:(

Is this the same GTR that had a lucky escape at Calder Park, on a WRX track day, in Feb?

If not, i also remember seeing another very neat silver 34GTR at Sandown.

Good luck with the repairs, all the best.

PS: AU's suck!! Mine has gone through 2 auto transmissions, one gas converter, 3 dash inserts, numerous gasket seal, etc. The only thing worse than the AU, are the mechanics at the Ford dealerships :D. But as i stated b4; It's all good when it is free :yes:

No, the only WRX track meeting i've been to was Sandown in June.

Cheers,

Neil

curious question to those who've seen the wobbles with trailers.

what tyre pressure were u running on the trailer tyres?

I had the wobbles so many times, but never checked the tyre pressure.

Problem with my tow car is its to damn low, which puts too much weight to the front....plus some of these hire trailer really sucks.

That nearly happen to me coming back from Winton....I had to keep in under 100 to keep the trailer steady.....And my tow car is a FORD.

I thought this was normal. 60mph or 100kph is the legal limit in the UK for trucks and cars towing trailers. As trucks are 100kph here I assumed trailers were the same.

Sorry to see the mess and glad it can be fixed.

BTW I would like to nominate the taxi in my siggy for the sexiest 4 door Ford ever made :D

That sucks Niel. But I'm glad to hear you are ok though.

curious question to those who've seen the wobbles with trailers.

what tyre pressure were u running on the trailer tyres?

The first thing I did on the drive up to Sydney when I got the wobbles was stop and check the tyre pressures and they were all fine. The wobbles tend to come on during a down-hill section where the trailer trailer tries to go faster than the car. This is made worse when the tow car is lighter than what is being towed (which is consequently why it's against the law to do it in Vic).

Sorry to hear of the accident and injury Neil. Hope all is well soon

I have several hundred thousand kays towing weird loads doing heavy recovery and repair for Army. When you put a car (or any sprung load) on a trailer you are more prone to the trailer getting the wobbles and tank slapping. One of the biggest problems is the silly over tyre retainers that people use. They are so common now but really are just scary.

One of the problems we had where I got to test and quantify the failures and solutions was where I ran the Army trials on the ASLAV 8WD fighting vehicle transport solution and aside from putting wooden blocks underneath and chaining down onto them the next best was to pull the vehicle down hard on the suspension. Unfortunately someone a whole lot smarter (ie. has more rank) decided to change to tyre straps and driver constantly complain about the instability so it's a matter of time before another serious fallover. The same is true for cars, buses, trucks, I've even had a triple trailer road train hooked up behind the 286hp Mack Wrecker (massive 11 litre 6 cyl engine with huge turbo so small peak power but wicked torque into a 5 speed crash box). All vehicles move around on their suspension causing the trailer to move in an unpredictable way. A tyre down on pressure can be a cow as well.

What Snowy said about the brake is a good temporary cure. Set the brake a little tighter on the actuator and it keeps the trailer pulled in behind, especially down hills where it wants to overtake but wears the brakes out. If it's a rental who cares but you do want brakes for when you have to stop.

Braking slightly is usually the best method but is a bit hard with rentals as they rely on the pressure in the piston to start to slow. If you have a trailer remote brake overide then use that to pull the trailer in behind until you can pull over and fix properly. Ultimately properly restrained to the trailer is the only real solution.

As for Fords being crap, I've owned several and still have one in the driveway I use for towing the 6x4 and have no problems with them. Also I don't recall a GTS4 owner ever beating me in any event on the track or DECA, so does that mean they are crap drivers and have to hide behind AWD to cover their faults???? :D

BTW Snowy you might find it's only against the law where there are no trailer brakes fitted which all car trailers I've used have, usually a brake overide system but they need a little adjustment to get right. How else do people tow their really large boats/operate primes with a tri-axle trailer.

What stuns me is there is no special license to use a trailer. You have car license so you are automatically good to tow??? And the govt says they are getting tough on road safety. BS!! We have people who can't parallel park that can legally tow (and one would assume reverse and restrain a load correctly IAW state and federal requirements) with no extra training.

That sucks Niel. But I'm glad to hear you are ok though.

The first thing I did on the drive up to Sydney when I got the wobbles was stop and check the tyre pressures and they were all fine. The wobbles tend to come on during a down-hill section where the trailer trailer tries to go faster than the car. This is made worse when the tow car is lighter than what is being towed (which is consequently why it's against the law to do it in Vic).

Cheers Andrew,

The tyre pressures and trailer hook-up (ride height) were checked by the trailer hire guy. I guesstimated there was between 100-150kg of weight on the tow ball (it's recommended that you have 5-15% of the weight being towed on the tow ball), I stopped twice between Ararat and Ballarat to check that nothing had moved, and the car was tied down with webbing and rope plus the steel winch cable. I was cruising along at 90-95km/h and everything was handling fine until the long steep downhill section at Pikes Creek on the Western Hwy when the fishtailing started, and didn't stop despite attempted acceleration (the suggested method of correcting this problem).

Apparently, it is legal to tow up to 1.5 times the mass of the towing vehicle with a braked trailer - not that I'll ever try this again - the car will be delivered straight from the repairers to Racepace by truck!

Most importantly, AAMI (Ford) and Just Car Insurance (GTR) have covered the damage. Though I'm sure the insurance on the GTR will skyrocket next time the policy is up for renewal.

When I say "relatively'', if it was a commodore and not a GTR, it would have been about $12,000 to fix, but because of the price of parts etc on the gtr you can multiply by about a factor of 4!

All panels down the passenger side rooted, nose ripped off (going to put a nismo front bar on as a replacement), passenger side suspension components damaged etc.

man i cant say i feel wat ur going through but i got some idea....i currently own a r34 gtt and is no where near as crazi as sexy gtr but its been smashed off the road into a pole by some commodore driver. id proberly be crying if it was a GTR....i hope everything goes well man...hopefulli ill see u around some day...where bouts are u usually

Edited by anjoO

Sorry to hear Neil, good thing you came out unscathed...

Its quite dangerous towing a big car like a GTR on hired trailers, most of them are rated at 1200kg towing capacity, and having a 1600kg GTR on it is quite risky. That aside it makes life easier if you have quite a large tow vehicle such as a 4wd to stop the trailer pushing the car down hills..

You'd be surprised how many incidents like this I come across.....

Sorry to see something like this mate, hope all works out well.

As for those with the silly comments, there is no need for that, could happen to anyone. I'm sure this is hard enough on the owner without wise cracks...

Dane

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now



  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • Even more fun, leave all the ADAS stuff plugged in, but in different locations, hopefully avoid any codes!   And honestly, all these new cars with their weird electronics. Pull all the electronics out Duncan, and just shove an aftermarket ECU and if needed a trans controller in, along with a PDM. Make it run basic but race car styled!
    • To follow up a question from earlier too since I had the front bar off again (fking!) This is what is between the bumper and the drivers side wheel And this is the navigator side, only one thing but its a biggy! So basically....no putting coolers in the wheel arches without a lot of moving other stuff. Assuming I move to properly race prepping this car I'll take that job on and see how the computers respond to removing a whole bunch of ADAS modules
    • So I prepped the car for another track day on Wednesday (will be interesting to see coolant temps post flushing out and the larger reservoir, with a forecast of 3-14 being 20o cooler than last time I took it out). Couple of things to mention; since I am just driving the car and not taking a support vehicle, I took the rear seats out and just loaded the back up Team Trackday style. Look at all that space! To cover off removing the rear seat....it is weird (note the hybrid is probably different because it wouldn't have folding rear seats) Basically, you remove the lower seat base, very similar to a r series but it is a clip that pulls forward to release the base rather than it being bolted down. Easy Then, you need to remove the side section of the rear seat on each side. There is a 14mm head nut at the bottom of the side piece, the it slides upwards off a hook at the top to release; you also need to unhook the seatbelt from the loop at the top. Then the centre piece is weird. You need to release/fold the seats forward with the tab in the boot on each side From there, there are 2,x12mm headed bolts holding the rear of each seat to the folding bracket, under the trim between the rear seat and the boot (4x christmas tree clips there, they suck). The seat is out but you can see where the bolts attach to the bracket
    • As discussed in the previous post, the bushes in the 110 needed replacing. I took this opportunity to replace the castor bushes, the front lower control arm, lower the car and get the alignment dialled in with new tyres. I took it down to Alignment Motorsports on the GC to get this work done and also get more out of the Shockworks as I felt like I wasn't getting the full use out of them.  To cut a very long story short, it ended up being the case the passenger side castor arm wouldn't accept the brand new bush as the sleeve had worn badly enough to the point you could push the new bush in by hand and completely through. Trying a pair of TRD bushes didn't fix the issue either (I had originally gone with Hardrace bushes). We needed to urgently source another castor arm, and thankfully this was sourced and the guys at the shop worked on my car until 7pm on a Saturday to get everything done. The car rides a lot nicer now with the suspension dialled in properly. Lowered the car a little as well to suit the lower profile front tyres, and just bring the car down generally. Eternally thankful for the guys down at the shop to get the car sorted, we both pulled big favours from our contacts to get it done on the Saturday.  Also plugged in the new Stedi foglights into the S15, and even from a quick test in the garage I'm keen to see how they look out on the road. I had some concerns about the length of the LED body and whether it'd fit in the foglight housing but it's fine.  I've got a small window coming up next month where I'll likely get a little paint work done on the 110 to remove the rear wing, add a boot wing and roof wing, get the side skirt fixed up and colour match the little panel on the tail lights so that I can install some badges that I've kept in storage. I'm also tempted to put in a new pair of headlights on the 110.  Until then, here's some more pictures from Easter this year. 
    • I would put a fuel pressure gauge between the filter and the fuel rail, see if it's maintaining good fuel pressure at idle going up to the point when it stalls. Do you see any strange behavior in commanded fuel leading up to the point when it stalls? You might have to start going through the service manual and doing a long list of sensor tests if it's not the fuel system for whatever reason.
×
×
  • Create New...