The Gun Counter

Crap. Never seen anything like that before.

I could envisage a scenario where the brake was binding on that wheel ( the over-run brake if it's fitted, they usually are here on twin wheelers ) and that caused enough stress to shear the studs - but you would expect to see liquified grease running out of the bearing and I think you would have noticed the smoke.

Your Guardian Angel must have PTSD by now...

Changed tires on a lot of crappy, shitty old trailers. Never seen anything quite like that. If the lugs were loose and backed off, there should at least have been something left of some of the studs.

Edit to add... I used to say that my dad was the luckiest, unlucky guy I ever knew. You are clearly the new champion.

I've seen the spindle turn loose and everything goes, tire, wheel, hub, the whole sebang, but I've never seen all five lugs go at the same time.

That looks like a 6 lug hub. Or at least, it was.

Just a suggestion, but you probably shouldn't buy any lottery tickets.

I think you've used up all your luck. And probably some of mine.

I'm not sure that I would have posted about this, until I was reasonably certain that nobody took a 70mph tire in the face.

PawPaw wrote:I've seen the spindle turn loose and everything goes, tire, wheel, hub, the whole sebang, but I've never seen all five lugs go at the same time.

Me neither.

Question: Chris, did you have the tire worked on recently? It's possible that the nuts were badly over-torqued, and it caused the studs to fail.

OR.......just speculating here...are the parts Chinese made? We have had some occurrences in the GoM oilfield of "counterfeit" shackles failing and dropping crane loads. Turns out the Chinese were/are counterfeiting the Crosby and other quality brands. The Chinese shackles were made from crap steel, and testing showed they would fail at less than their load rating, much less have a 3:1 safety factor.
Coast Guard sent out a Gulf-wide notice to all companies to inspect their shackles, along with pictures of what to look for.

CByrneIV wrote: Its possible the brake on that axle seized... But all 6 lugs, and no wrenching sqeel, smoking, or dragging to that side?

We've done a lot of towing ( horses as you know ) and a brake can seize on a twin wheel trailer without squealing or dragging - if the trailer is heavy enough, or loaded heavy enough.
What you will get is smoke as the wheel bearing grease becomes liquid and boils off. The last time it happened to us it was summer and with the truck windows down I smelled the grease before I could see smoke.

How the wheel assembly ultimately fails when a brake seizes I can only guess at, the times it happened we caught the problem before it got that bad.

Holy cow.... I've been towing trailers for work for over 20 years (I currently have 4), but have never seen a 6 lug wheel snap off like that. And that you noticed no symptoms prior? Strange....

Never seen lugs fail like that either, and I've been around trailers my whole life and towing for 15. I'd have expected the hub to fail, I've seen and fixed that a couple times.