Trailer rant!

[Sunbeam]

I had bought some of the white Fulton boat guides (50" tall), although they were not the rotating type. They had nice PVC cap type LED lights as optional top fittings (which is IIRC what anchorout has on top of his Pacific guides now). However, they wouldn't work (fit) with my trailer and the way the boat sits on it. Well, since I'd always admired the Pacific guides, and then I found myself in their parts department......

[capt. meares]

To add to this trailer rant, I had an odd experience with one of my trailer rollers. I have noticed for a while that I have been getting some pretty nasty scratches on the lower portion of my bow, always in the same spot. I discovered the problem to be a bad roller on my ez loader trailer. It was completely seized up. After some work I was able to remove the roller and inspect the cause of the problem. I could not believer the amount of salt caked into and underneath the plastic caliper sleeve, after removing the roller. The solid chunk of white mass was hard as a rock and took several minutes to remove with a hammer and scraper, getting all the way back down to metal. I know the problem is fixed for now, but I am more curious than anything as to what caused this phenomena??? It is like there was some kind of a strong salt magnet. Even stranger is none of the other rollers on the trailer have any symptoms of this whatsoever. Has anyone seen this before? What can I do to prevent this from happening again other than always dunking in fresh water after a day in the salt?

[PaulNBriannaLynn]

There have been a lot of improvements with boat trailers since my first boat and trailer, a 1972 Caulkins painted steel trailer. That thing would get hot and burn out trailer bearings while slinging grease all over everything and was almost impossible to get the boat on there straight.

Modern boat trailer bearings are a huge improvement. Our 2003 King trailer under our 22' had a spare wheel with bearing and hub ready to bolt on, should we have a failure. Luckily we never did, with 4 years of use, thousands of miles and 100s of saltwater launches.

The lights on the other hand were a real pain. I never did burn out a bulb though. I had many frustrating times where I would only have lights on one side, and it would be a loose ground, or Id need to jiggle the plug in truck. The problem was I'd get them working, and another 10 miles down the road at 70 mph, they'd stop working again without me knowing. This was really dangerous especially at night. I was nearly rear-ended trailering over Highway 2 near Leavenworth after dark.... and that would have been totally my fault, even though I'd just got them working properly again maybe 20 miles before.

I think the solution is a portable light bar, which you can unplug when launching and place in the cab of your pickup. It may seem "hillbilly" for such a nice boat, but its the way I'll be going in the future.

Only using sling launches, or just using the trailer twice a year to put it in for the season is a huge negative. I'm always a little bummed when we would have our boat moored for months at a time in the same spot. There's something about the freedom of having your boat on a trailer. You can go anywhere you want, and we really took advantage of that in Washington state. One weekend we'd be camping on Orcas island catching shrimp, the next weekend we'd be on the Skagit river plunking for pink salmon. You need a good trailer for that life.

[chromer]

The politically correct term is "Hill William"

[Will-C]

We got away from the plastic license plate brackets for the above reason. They are ok for minimal trailering. The license plate was still hanging from one side as someone in the pouring rain signaled me there was a problem with the trailer. I pulled over as did the good Samaritan. He wanted to know if I needed any tools this all in a driving rain! I saw the plate hanging by one half of the bracket and just cut the other tab off with a sharp knife. We rode home with the trailer plate in the truck. We carry a spare now as they are cheap. I doubt I will ever need it but someone else might.
D.D.

_________________

[Will-C]

We used 5/16 thick conveyor belting for the license plate for the license plate holder. We have conveyor belting under both rear lights as it reduces vibration hopefully preventing lights from vibration cracking by adding the cushion of the conveyor belting. But not under the light bar which is bolted to a cross member that does not vibrate too much I hope. Note gussets on tail light brackets which will crack right at the 90 degree bend without the gussets. 90 pound stranded fishing wire with crimped loops on and under the bolts for retention. The license plate is bolted to a 1/4 plastic backing plate fabricated out of some plastic to prevent cracking around the fasteners on the plate. Lots of miles and with no more failures yet.
D.D.

[ssobol]