Trailer Re-think

[kingtin]

Chop got me tho thinking in the last thread so salvaged these skids off an old pontoon

[choppa]

That's my good deed done for the day,,,,

looks the goods mate,,,

[cormorant]

That looks like one of those kit trailers. All I can say is buy some loctite and use it and then paint the whole thing with a clearcoat. We bought one and used it to carry the tender from the ramp to home about 3 time a year and also when we wanted the tender to use in another waterway.

Starts with paint off the rims so the beads don't seal ( yep put some tubes in)
Bolts would rattle out - yep loctite . I didn't put it together originally but lets just say the quality is not great.
plastic paint - painted with teh thinnest coat of plastic paint china could do - looked great for a year in the garage and then 2 months outside and it spot bubbled and peeled.

Check your wheel bearings - mine had no grease and weren't adjusted .


Yeah it was cheap and has done 4 years and won't fail but it sure is looking crap fast and in hindsight should just have bought a gal box trailer and it would have lasted forever

[kingtin]

Yeah mate. The paint ain't brill but it won't be going near the salt anyway and is garaged. Comes with nyloc nuts nowadays unlike the earlier models.

[cormorant]

I was having a whinge -we never dunked ours so just fresh water washdown and rain- I picked up ours for peanuts and it has done exactly what we bought it for but I never expected it to be as poor a quality but that is what you get in a light trailer designed to only carry the light complaince weight. I'd have to check but be very careful with weights as I have seen some only rated 400-500kg and people have had a lot more on them which won't go down well if there is a failure. Brother reminded me last night as he checked the wheels that the splt pins had't been bent at all and were rubbing on the cover. so I'd probably just have a look for that and put some decent grease in there.
So light we store it on it's side in the garage. Ours is white and can't be UV proof paint as every defect in the paint as lifted - it is as if they bent the steel ( like guards / rails) after painting as it is worse at any bend or stress point. Maybe it is just thinner paint there.

The suspension is rockhard with no weight on it so you might try a low tyre pressure depending on what speed you tow at and if you get any sway with yak on one side. For some reason we had the spare knocked off when it was new- guess the paint fell of someone elses and they were pissed and wanted ours.

My hitch helmet wouldn't stay on the bloody thing either and was a decoration deterrant so we put a cheapo pressed metal lock on it

Now the nylocs - the main components were nylocked where the guy that put it together used 50 the right way up ( ha ha) but terrible cheap ones and I am not sure if the bloke who put it together did it a few times or something but we loctite and added locknuts on some main components after a couple worked loose. Very thin sharp thread on the cheap bolts didn't hold even new nylocks to what I wanted. With had suspension it was rattling itself to death and I was very sus if the hitch bolts were rated so replaced 2 to be sure.

Yours is a good set up ( I have 2 rails/ bunks with skids) to and will last you a good time but all I can say is if you see a 2nd hand hot dipped gal box trailer get it and sell the cheapo while it still looks OK as mine is structurally sound but looked shabby after a year. If enough paint falls off mine I might give it to the powdercoaters a it is convenient being so light. We can slip it on the trayback so it doesn't shake to death on the road when empty.

Anything that saves lifting yaks off a roof is a good thing and we have had ours apart and back ogether as a idiot obviously put it together in the first place. Just put it in teh diary to check all is well every 6 months as they are built to a price.

[kingtin]

Thanks for that mate...............I've already decided that I'm gonna put lock nuts on every bolt as I found one loose aready but I think it may be one that I missed tightening up. When I put the frame together, I made the mistake of tightening all the nuts and then when i came to add the drawbar, the holes wouldn't align with the frame......................had to loosen every bloody bolt to get the drawbar on!

Apart from the odd holiday, she'll only do about 30k a week but I'll keep an eye on things anyway.

Took her out this morning. Only had an hour fishing after emptying the shrimp traps................ Two bass 49 and 41 cms to big @rsed live shrimp.

Loaded the yak whilst on the trailer, backed down the ramp to just short of axle and she just slid off eezy peezy. Same getting her back on. Nice not to have to bugger about putting the motor/battery and the rest of the gear in her whilst in the water.

Pity I didn't have an audience as I haven't reversed a trailer fo 20 yrs as the missus always did it before.................even the big Whittley sea legend we had...........a round of applause after the 3rd attempt would have been good

kev

[josh9787]

hey all. desite this being an old thread it still provides good information.

our business gets alot of people walking in. usually reffered to or by chance, but most do not know where to purchase the blue plastic skids from. our business is the actual manufacturer of these products in Australia.
We get lots of kayak customers come in to modify their trailers and or roof racks to help them launch and retrieve their kayaks.
if anyones interested check out our product information page at
http://www.roxom.com.au/boat-trailer.../plastic-skids and feel free to ask any questions. hope this provides some assistance to those who are wondering where to buy skids from.
as another note, most people call them teflon skids, but the actual material is a HDPE Polyethylene plastic, it is UV resistant.

cheers

[josh9787]

Hi all. just posting an update to my last reply.
for the next 48hours we are having 35% off all our products on our website.
Those interested in purchasing plastic skids and or bumper covers for there kayaks may find this useful.
Visit our website at http://www.roxom.com.au to view all our products.
If you wish to take up this offer, simply enter "auswide35" at checkout for the discount to be applied.

Cheers