My boss has one of the newer ones, has pulled his ice castle and boat to lotw from the twin cities many times in the last couple years and has had no issues.

icefanatic11 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>suzuki wrote:</div>
Fish outside.

x2

x3

Alright guys,

I went to menards and bought a big sledge hammer and was able to get the side that was stuck all the way up back down and got the pin in.

The other side would not budge with a sledge hammer. For this side I took a really long steel poll and put it between the rotating assembly and the frame. I put a bunch of weight on it and was able to get it to move.

Now I have the pins in both sides to I can at least tow it and get the work done to it in the shop. Thanks for all the help everyone!

Update guys….

Had about 30 minutes to take a look at it today and was able to get the wheel and fender off:

And here you can see where the axle needs to drop down to:

This is also the side where you can see I was able to get grease in the zerk:

I did take a smaller and a 2×4 to it, but it would not budge, I might just need a bigger mallet though. I would have tried ratchet straps, but they are in my wife’s vehicle and she has it at work. There’s not a ton of room to get any sort of leverage with straps. Not really any good place to hook a strap to below the leaf spring. The frame may work, but its not really a straight shot either…

castle-rock-clown wrote:

Take the tire off, take than fender off, place 2×4 on axle arm, and hit with sledge and I bet it will come down. After getting it trailerable get it to dealer and have them make it right. Every spring I would remove stubs and clean / recoat with waterproof grease.

This is a very good idea, thank you.

steuben1 wrote:

Good idea there. If it were mine, I would probably leave it hooked to the tow vehicle, get two bottle jacks and jack up the center of the trailer taking the pressure off the cylinders. From there you should be able to work with the cylinders much easier as there will be no stress on them. I would grease the heck out of them and maybe us a floor jack underneath them and force them up when the lift motor is engaged.

The wheels on these only move on the pivot point by gravity, there is no motor to make the axles go up and down. Thanks

These are very good suggestions, and I will probably give them a shot if I need to, but they also do not solve the overall problem of the trailer being able to do it by itself when I take it out on the ice to go fishing. This may help me get the axles broke loose enough to get them off though.

I do not have a tractor/bobcat to use, but i do have a chain and a 4-ton hand cable puller. Just not sure where to hook some of this up as there is not a lot of room on either side of the house. The house is currently sitting about 3 ft away from the property line fence.

I wont have time to really work on it until this weekend but thanks for the suggestions.

castle-rock-clown wrote:

Those appear to be stub axles and are basically a steel pipe within a steel pipe. Road grime can cause them to bind, or if left sitting rust will do the same…maybe even ice. Can you take the elevated wheel and grab it and push it up and down? Something is binding and I bet it’s corrosion from sitting since last year…unless you tried it while purchasing it recently, and it worked then, good luck. Let us know what you find out.

Yeah I hear this sort of thing is pretty common on Ice Castles as well if they are not properly greased.

I am almost certain it is corrosion after looking at it pretty close and reading about this happening to other people.

I guess what I’m mainly looking for here is, how should I go about getting these axles off of the pivot point if I am not even able to move them up and down by hand? The one side did move up when i put the weight of the ice house on it, and it also did take some grease in the zerk, so maybe that one will not be as bad.

I kind of want to do this myself as well because I will most likely be doing it on occasion as I do not want this to happen again in the future.

Thanks again guys.

StormyNY wrote:

Why would you come here and not call the manufacture first ?

I’m waiting to hear back from the dealer that sold it to me. I was told the head service technician was going to give me a call and “make this right.” So we will see.

I would have just taken it back in and I’m sure they would have taken it all apart and greased it up for me, but with the wheels stuck how they are it cannot be moved.

ps0345 wrote:

Have you tried to heat up the pivot point?
A little WD-40 and tap with a hammer?
Maybe get a bottle jack and try and push it up or down.
Otherwise call the Manufacturer… you’d think it be a warranty thing if it completely took a crap.

Or maybe there is a safety to the system, you have to drop it all the way to disengage/ release it?

Thanks for the quick response.

-I have tried heating up the pivot point, but it was very cold out when I tried and I had no success.
-Have not tried wd-40 yet, but it is a very large pivot point and I’m not sure if it’d be possible for the wd-40 to make its way inside.
-I did try to jack the other side up(the side the wheel is in the down position) and it just lifted the entire house. I mean this is kind of the same thing as just raising the jacks on the house as all the weight goes onto the tire.
-I’ve looked underneath and I don’t see any type of safety system, but I could be wrong. This still wouldn’t explain why the other side of the house doesn’t drop though.
-I read the book that came with the house, there is a 1 year warranty on pretty much everything, and a 2 year warranty on the frame/structural stuff. I don’t think something like this would be covered as nothing appears to be broken….yet anyway.