TPMS - Tire Pressure Monitering system

I've towed trailers over 60,000 miles. I have had blowouts/flats on the trailer go unnoticed until a passing motorist waved at me frantically. One guy blew his horn, waved and pointed; I thought to myself, "Yes it is a nice boat isn't it?" On a trip to Alaska from SC along the Alaska Highway, I said to my wife, "That's a new noise". There was no other indication that the travel trailer tire was flat and shredding itself. If not caught soon enough, these shredding tires can easily take out a fender and damage the trailer or cargo not to mention resulting in an overload on other tires causing them to fail.

Today I tow a 28 foot long, 12 foot high houseboat on a tandem axle trailer. I worry about having one of these phantom blowouts eventually resulting in my trailer getting out of control and the damage it can cause. My solution is to install a TPMS on my trailer.

Most new cars come with a TPMS. There are several varieties of 'aftermarket' TPMS systems. Most require demounting the tire and installing the sender inside the rim. It's not uncommon for these systems to require new senders when the battery powering it expires - this can be seven years or more...but still. Some work only when the vehicle is moving. Some have a range limited only to passenger car tire pressures. My original houseboat trailer tires called for 120 psi which is out of the range of many systems.

On my boat trailer, it would be nice to have the sender inside the tire when the trailer is in the water, and even thought I have a tire changer in my garage so I could do it myself, I still kept looking to explore other options. I came upon  TST 507


I can possibly see why these units aren't more popular. The instructions are very intimidating! It turned out it wasn't all that bad once you get the hang of it...I think. I installed them on my one ton van to see how they work before I put them on the boat trailer. The sender just screws on the valve stem, but the receiver needs to be programmed to know which wheels have the senders and what psi and temp are associated with each.

So far, I'm extremely happy with my new TST 507 TPMS. The receiver will alarm if there's a blow out, slow leak or high temp. The receiver is battery powered as well as using a USB plug, so you can take it with you as you walk around the rig toggling thru the pressure and temp of each tire. With the receiver in hand, if you unscrew the sender from the valve stem (resulting in zero pressure), it will alarm with a blinking position - a great way to know the system is set up correctly and working.

I'll be a lot more comfortable this Fall when we tow Big Duck to Lake Powell (>2,000 miles each way) knowing that a bad tire will be detected in plenty of time to react safely. And by the way, did you know that no matter which tire blows, your safest move is to accelerate until you have control?

 

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Update:

After over 2,000 miles on the van, I can say these things are great! I'm totally confident they will notify me of a blowout or slow leak in time. I'm not sure I have the temperature thing worked out yet though. The valve stems on the van are all rubber and while I can see temperature variations from tire to tire, I'm not sure how that translates to rim/hub temp. The valve stems on the trailer are metal (albeit insulated from the rim with sealing rubber) so maybe they'll be better?

And as far as I can tell, the sensors do not affect tire balance.

Another update:

In Sept 2012 the TPMS for the trailer paid for itself when it warned me of a slow leak on my 2000 mile trip towing Big Duck to Lake Powell from SC.

Lake Powell Trip

The Blame - Our Most Generous Moment

Mine seems to be a generation of more. We want more money, more power, more house, more car, more boat, more, more, more. We have no hesitation in getting or taking or even working for more, but somewhere along the way to more, more, more we decided that more blame wasn't part of the program. I wonder how this came about? I'm not taking the blame...no more blame for me.

I'm bored. When I'm bored it means I'm stupid. I don't know how to keep myself occupied. Not taking the blame is pretty much the same thing. You take the blame because I'm stupid and I don't know how to fix the problem.

Try saying, "I'll take the blame!" It's hard isn't it? But if you do take the blame it means you're willing to solve the problem rather than to just whine about it.

Next time you're giving away the blame, ask yourself why?

Sailboat or Trawler

My wife and I thought we'd like to get into boating. It seemed to be a nice way to travel and a cheap way to live. We were going to make it a lifestyle and live aboard. The kind of boat was important. We wanted a boat that would take us anywhere in uncompromising safety. This would allow us complete freedom in our choices of where to go, even if we wanted to cross oceans. That was many boats ago, and we now look back on three years of living aboard, and the oceans we crossed and didn't cross.

The type of boats we have chosen through the years have been a product of our sense of adventure, our knowledge of boats and boating and now our age. As novices we were blind to the restrictions imposed by requiring an 'ocean crossing' boat. We didn't really know if we wanted to cross oceans, we just wanted to be able to. It turned out that we really didn't want to cross oceans after all, and had we known that from the beginning we might have settled on a completely different boat - but back then the sense of adventure ruled and we wanted to be ready for anything.

So after contacting every dealer in the United States we ended up buying an Alberg designed, full keel, Bristol 27 sloop w/ 10hp diesel auxiliary, from a dealer we never met (because we took delivery at the factory in Bristol Rhode Island).

We lived our dream working summers and cruising winters. The only source of power the sail boat sported was the car type starting battery for the little diesel. And that battery would barely run the anchor light all night. We rowed a 2 man blow up dinghy back and forth to work from our spot in the anchorage. Our time aboard was without running water or refrigeration. Our winter cruises took us to the Chesapeake, Keys, Bahamas and Caribbean. 

 
Later in life, we tried a 35' trawler with all the conveniences and comforts. It was over 250 miles from our house and we always had to begin our cruises from the same place...one soon runs out of places to explore on a weekend given a less than 50 mile cruising radius. The trawler was complicated and expensive. We only kept her for a year.

Today we have a very simple, yet comfortable boat. She's 28 feet long, 8 feet wide and is powered by the ubiquitous small block Chevy engine. She sports a Honda generator which will run her rooftop air conditioner, make hot water for a stand up shower and keep ice in a small chest freezer (from Walmart). Her aft deck is level with most docks so there's no stepping over or down to get aboard. She has stairs, not a ladder to get aboard while swimming. My dog uses the stairs down and up to swim ashore to go potty. The boat has a simple flybridge. Given our updated non-requirement for an 'ocean crosser' and our current knowledge of seamanship and weather, this boat would have been perfect for us when we first took to the water, not to mention that she has positive floatation so she's unsinkable . Oh, and did I mention that Big Duck makes a dynamite camping trailer as well, allowing us to enjoy the road AND start our cruises from many different locations.

"Wallydocking" - spending the night aboard in a Walmart parking lot.

Here's our dog Merlin coming back aboard after swimming ashore to go potty.

 

She sleeps 7. And even with 2 couples a baby and 2 dogs we enjoy extended outings. 

 

Nice aft deck 'playpen' for toddlers, dogs and people.

Big Duck is a 1972, Land N Sea trailerable houseboat.

What Were They Thinking?

I've got a long hatch the length of the cabin for bilge access.  It's about 2 feet wide and at least 12 feet long. I've got it completely opened up because I'm installing a new fuel tank. There's a place forward where the water lines run from the tank side of the boat to the galley side. The main plumbing is copper, but across this bilge opening they have inserted a section of rubber hose.

 

This is done very nicely by terminating the copper line with a flared fitting, then using a barbed hose adapter onto which the hose is clamped.

What I'd like to know, is why they didn't just slide the hose over the copper?