Salt Water Tales: Trailer Ugly to Trailer Beautiful

Larry Eckart

Well-known member
Guys (and Dani),
I am continually amazed at the power of salt water to corrode, erode and generally destroy equipment.

Two years ago I bought a 15' Boston Whaler Sport up in the Finger Lakes of New York. It came with a painted steel trailer. I took the motor ifor a general check over and the local marina man said: "Great boat, almost new motor, but you are going to have to get a different trailer."

I figured I could get 3-4 years out of that steel trailer. Wrong!

About a month ago I crawled under my rig to look it over closely and was appalled at what I saw.

Here is a pic of the whole trailer with a "slight touch of cancer":

View attachment Frame-16-02-2018-03-59-18.jpg

Here is a closeup of the rear frame member. This really got my attention. Note how the frame is beginning to twist as it weakens. Potential bad news if I used it and went over a good bump. And this significant rust out even though it was hosed down with fresh water after every immersion. I did not want to pass this trailer on to someone else so I took it to the metal recycler and got a windfall of $24 for the metal!

View attachment Frame-16-02-2018-03-57-54.jpg

I did not want to spring for a new aluminum trailer but figured I could find a very good galvanized trailer, perhaps someone else who was upgrading to aluminum. I was blessed to find this three year old EZ Loader in almost new condition. It's actually a size heavier than I need but heavier is better than lighter when it comes to durability.

Every trailer switch takes a couple of dunks in the water to get the bunks and rollers right. It's pretty well ready for the road and looking pretty.

View attachment IMG_1603.jpg

I look forward to many years and many miles and much water explored with this combo.
Larry
 
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I,ve been blessed to live in an area that on way home from saltwater hunting/fishing I can slip down to boat ramp at local fresh water river and dunk boat trailer and run some fresh thru motor. Even with galvinised trailers that fresh water dunk has greatly extended life of my trailers to the point I,ve never had to replace one. Seems to really help with prolonging life of water pump and impeller also.
 
My trailer ugly to trailer beautiful went a different way. When I pick up my TDB 16/Merrymeeting scull it came with a trailer and a 4 hp outboard. The package cost less then the value of the boat. The trailer had the tongue extended and did show a bit of rust but nothing to bad (I thought). This fall while after a hunt with my son we were being checked by the wardens I looked and the axel seems bent. so after they left I crawled under and sure enough it was rusted out and bent. We were miles from home so I stayed off the interstate and eased our way back home.

On the way home the was a man selling a nice G3 side console boat/ Yamaha motor on a trailer. Looked like a great fishing rig so we stopped and looked. Nice boat at a fair price or $5000. Nice but out of my price range by 2k. We told the guy it was a nice boat but more than we could afford and started to walk off. He asked us what we could afford, and we told him $3000. He said he had to co-workers that wanted to look at the boat but took our information.

The our trailer made it to 2 miles from the house before it came apart and became a drag. Dropped it and went after my land scape trailer and hauled the boat and trailer onto it and completed the trip. Ordered an axle and hubs to repair our trailer and while on the computer looked up the value of the G3. Huh it had a book value of $5500 and I wrote it off. 3 days later he calls and says the boat is ours for $3000. We go to pick it up and low and behold he adds in fishfinder, 2 downriggers, and life jackets.

Now we have a beautiful trailer with a great fishing boat on it.
 
I think you win the ugly trailer ward Larry. That old one looks to be in tough shape.

Mark
 
Two options up here, a light coat of interior bed liner sprayed the length of the interior frame members, or a penetrating petroleum distillate applied the same way and left to sit.

A lot of guys who ride lugged steel frame road bikes have the interior tubes fogged with a penetrating oil. I saw a Ross mountain bike frame fail on a downhill run right at the lug via interior rust. The resulting crash was not pretty.
 
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