When we got here we started having a little trouble with our big slide and Bob noticed a broken hanger underneath the trailer. Since we had been told there were no public services here at Prudhoe Bay we thought we could make it back to Fairbanks if we were careful, but we got about 5 miles down the road and the trailer just wasn’t tracking right, plus the driver’s side wheels were too close together. We called one of the places in Deadhorse (luckily we still had cell service) and were referred twice more to the CMH2Hill light duty shop and they were agreeable to taking a looksee. The looksee revealed a broken frame as well as a broken hanger. Brock, the welder, said the frame already had an old crack and the new one broke it. The rear of the trailer was about 3” lower than it should have been. Thank goodness it is the summer season here as they wouldn’t even have been able to give us the time of day in the winter. Not that we would come up here in the winter. Brock said it was good thing we had the problem here because the North Slope has just about the best welders in the world and enough steel to completely rebuild the rig if necessary. We took it in at 7:30 this morning and it was all fixed by 4:00 better than new. He checked the rest of the frame and hangers over and said it all looked okay. The only thing that needs replacing are the bushings in the springs. I am so grateful that it was something that could be fixed and that there was someone who could fix it. Moral of the story is if you take your rig on the Kamikazie Highway (the truckers' name for the Dalton Highway) go so slow you could have walked instead!
Pam