Frozen landing gear steering

[wreckerman893]

The now infamous Chemical Shelter Trailer has heaped more grief on me today.
I moved it into the shop with my tractor and put it in the center of the building while I did my trouble shooting on the systems.
I now need to get my son's car out of the shop and therein lies the problem.
I need to move it over to the side of the shop but the landing gear will not steer. It is frozen. The big single wheel will roll but I can't manuver it around, only back and fourth.
I applied a generous amount of the blue flame to heat the mechanism in hopes of loosening it up. No soap. I put a dose of Marvel Mystery Oil on while it was hot but still can't get it to turn.
Does this thing have a set of bearings in it or it just metal on metal with grease to keep it freely moving.
Any assistance would be appreciated before I break out the BFH.

 

[BillIdaho]

I spent 25 years as a machinist in a local factory. We had to fix whatever the mechanics would bring in to us, such as pumps (from handheld size to driven in on the back of a duece and a half!) Anyway, over the years we encountered every imaginable problem, one common one being--something was froze up. One guy advised a rather strange method of freeing things up. We all rolled our eyes and said " yeah, right", but none the less, tried it. 90% of the time, IT WORKED!!! Here goes, heat it up with a fire wrench, but don't get it red, just under red hot. Then go get a stick of wax. We had sticks of raw paraffin, no scents, or coloring. Rub the wax on the crack where the two stuck things are glued together. Let the wax melt into the area where it's froze. Wait till it cools, cut into small squares and serve with...oops, I went off on a tangent. After it cools, LIGHTLY tap with a SMALL hammer. Heat it up a second time and repeat the wax part. Every once in a great while, we would have to do it a third time, but very rarely. Something about the wax seems to work bette rthan any penetrating oils.
Your mileage may vary.

 

[Recovry4x4]

Just so you know how it goes, there is a bolt on the top that holds the landing gear in. The shaft on the gears has got to be at least 1 1/2" diameter. It goes through 2 brinze sleeves on the housing. Should also be a zerk fitting on that housing to load it up with grease.

 

[lacoda56]

I've heard about using wax before, but never thought it would work. Guess maybe I'd better be trying it.

 

[acetomatoco]

just jack the nose up with a floor jack and off you go....or you put a tanker bar down thru the lunette eye and use it as a lateral lever to steer....put some additional weight on the back of the trailer to lessen the nose wheel load...RAM

 

[cranetruck]

Kind of goes along the lines of my cooking method for freeing up the steering system ball joints. Oil at 275°F for 4 hours....

 

[rizzo]

My friends dad uses the wax. It works

 

[wreckerman893]

ROUND THREE!!!!!AND THE WINNER IS...........WRECKERMAN!!!!!!!!!!

The wax did the trick folks.

I heated it and applied the wax last night.....heated it again this morning and applied a judicious amount of force with the medium hammer.

It took about four good blows and the wheel fell right out.

See the attached pics.

Thanks again for helping me

 

[jkelly66]

Good deal thats one of those jobs that one never thinks will take so long

 

[wreckerman893]

The offending part has been reinstalled and said trailer now will steer.
This will allow me better access to my other junk.
Many thanks again to all those who assisted.
That's the great thing about this site. The amount of pratical knowlege here is staggering. And a lot of it is not book learning, but practical experience and many lessons learned at the "school of hard knocks".