Military Lightweight Forum

Apologies to those who saw this on EMLRA, but still wondering.............and still need to move my Sankey

My narrow track Sankey has been stored for the last couple of years at a long suffering friend's. I need to move it, but while the brakes are free and it moves ok, I am not confident that the brakes will operate properly and indeed may not seize at an inoportune moment.

It's towed with the usual nato hitch etc ie everything standard, and the lights will all be working etc, it's the brakes that are the concern. One thought is to put the collar used for reversing in place for the journey, ie effectively leaving the trailer unbraked, and relying on the lwt brakes which are in good working order. The sankey will be unladen and hence the weight of the trailer vs lwt etc means that it will be below the limits for unbraked vs braked trailers, ie if it didn't have brakes then ok. It needs to be safe and legal so while it shouldn't make a difference as to length or journey and type of roads, it's legal and ok or its not, but the journey will be less than 10 miles, not on the motorway, unless the towing rules are different on motorways that I am not aware of, which would be worth knowing but not appicable in this instance.

My thinking is that deliberately disabling the brakes and towing as an unbraked trailer that is within the limits is far safer and more sensible than a trailer where the brakes condition is uncertain where uneven braking etc would be a risk and therefore inappropriate and if not illegal then it should be.

Has anyone got any experience of this or insights ?

The other alternatives are either sorting the brakes where it is, not really an option, or moving it on a flat bed trailer which will be very expensive, not least as we are now in the ULEZ......

It is illegal to use an unbraked Sankey on the road, if you disable the brakes with the reversing mechanism and get stopped (very unlikely in London) provided you don't say you meant to disable the brakes and insist it was a simple mistake then that's it a simple mistake.

thanks, not sure I'd want to if illegal, and there's always the offchance that plod reads forums, certainly the cyclist who was prosecuted after a pedestrian was killed probably regrets some of the online stuff he posted, although that was truely shocking in all respects.

Curious as to why illegal as below the braked limits ? or is it that sankey designed with brakes and fails as outside the using as intended and therefore deemed not roadworthy.

Maybe check the RAC will recover if I run into problems, they have probably had enough of me after they got us home from the highlands of Scotland after the vw golf gearbox gave up late on a Saturday last summer, 450 miles by taxi is not cheap and that's before the vehicle recovery.

Pull the pin out of the brake linkage arm just below the handbrake,cable tie it up or it will fall to the floor and bend!This wouldn't be an obvious thing for the plod to look at but the reverse saddle is.Wouldn't harm having the tow pintle moving ever if it been stood so long.
Good luck mate.

cheers Rod, actually that sounds like a plan for at least getting the pintle moving ok with a bit of back and forth on the driveway and seeing how it looks, ISTR there is grease nipple as well to help, and then see where we are, its been so long I can barely remember what the underside looks like and how the brakes actually work, but at least I have found the old manual.......in a box of landy stuff (including the K&N air filter that I really must get round to fitting ), still finding stuff in boxes from when we moved from Hampshire and emptied the garage and that was nearly 7 years ago