just had a very pleasant and warm week in sunny dorset giving our new to us swift challenger a test run week ,everything went really good till when hitching up this morning the ALKO jockey wheel tightening bolt decided to snap off leaving most of itself in the thread with the other bit in my hand .
luckily the caravan was firmly attached by then ,300 miles later we got the rig home but i couldn't obviously then get the caravan off the car .luckinly i have a very handy mate who dropped everything and managed to chisel a slot in the sheared off bolt and i then replaced it with a new one i had picked up en route .
had visions of it costing me a small fortune as the plate is welded on but luck was on my side today PHEW
The same happened to me on my previous caravan when attending a rally just outside York about 4 years ago. I managed to get the broken part out from the reverse side (under the hitch) by use of a nail punch and hammer (kept in my tool kit). The spindle thread size is 10 mm. so a good friend on the rally field who lived near Halifax had to go home for some reason and came back with a 10 mm. hexagon bolt (as I had some hexagon Allen keys in my tool kit too) to use as a temporary measure to get me home. I bought a new AL-KO locking handle and exchanged it for the temporary bolt but have always kept it just in case the same ever happens again so it may be good advice to keep one handy and be prepared.
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