Cool finish.
How did you get the air bags to fit in so well?
Hi again.
Huge thank-you to Scottar for suggesting the eBay Vinyl laminates.
I pulled the rubbish "teak" laminate off, removed the steering helm and finalised the postiion of all the gauges.
Deep breath and attacked the dash with the hole saws...
I ended up with a pattern I hadn't considered previously, but it seemed to be the clearest and most logical.
Wash down the dash and applied the Vinyl.
WOW!
I'm sure you will all agree that the result was worth the effort:
IMG_3193.jpg IMG_3194.jpg IMG_3196.jpg
Had just enough vinyl left over to cover the steering wheel centre cap.
To me, this has made the interior.
As much as I hated the 1st vinyl, I like this one!
May get some onto the Mustangs dash...
Cool finish.
How did you get the air bags to fit in so well?
What could go wrong.......................
thats very nice, the steering wheel is mad as , well done
Hi all.
Had a chance to play with the boat again.
This time, I finished a job I've thinking about for a while - making the winch post suit the boat.
You will notice from this photo, that the bow stop is positioned right on the chine, where I propose to run chine tape, which will last for about 5 minutes.
IMG_3091.jpg
So I pulled it all apart, found some correctly sized pieces of steel and "customised" the brackets to better suit the purpose.
Bit of grinding, bit of welding, some cold gal, and job done:
IMG_3202.jpg
I just have to figure out where to mount the safety chain, but the big job is done.
While I had the welder out, I fitted a roller under the unsupported bow. I wasn't happy with it the way it was, as when I was under the foredeck fitting the new towing eye, it just felt like it needed more support.
Here it is, all fixed:
IMG_3201.jpg
So now the trailer is 100% done and I'm happy with it, except for the brakes, (and safety chain).
I believe that the fulcrum point for the brake actuator is too far from the hitch, so I'll have a look at the distances involved one day, and see if I can't make it work better.
And that, is the fun of simply messing about with boats!
I would get a "U" bolt of sufficient legth and drill through the RHS top plate / plates and fit the chain so it prevents or at least slows upward movement of the bow in an "oh shit" event. It's not ideal as it doesn't cover winch post failure but with that positioning doing that is pretty difficult to do neatly.
Yes , I take your point, but I see the biggest problem being the size of the tow eye on the boat.
It's too small to take several shackles.
If I change the snap hook on the winch strap tto an S hook, then I can probably fit a couple of shackles as well.
The problem is worse on the Mustang. Same size bow eye, 5x the weight hence bigger shackles
Of course, there will be a solution...
Yes I know the problem. I just put a new winch on my trailer and the size of the snap hook now does not allow me to put shackle through when boat pulled up tight. Going to have a look at it this week and even considering installing boat latch which will give me greater area to attach safety chains
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All you had to do was raise the adjustable winch post & replace the silly V block with a roller.This time, I finished a job I've thinking about for a while - making the winch post suit the boat.
Then put the winch strap under the roller and use a smaller shackle with the existing chain.
In short the whole winch set up was perfect aside from needing to be adjusted properly.
I fitted a second eye to my last boat. It had a fully rollered tilt cradle trailer, would self launch on the flat if you let the winch go. These eyes can and do break, the one on that boat had one leg snapped off already and lying in the anchor well when I bought it. So I could put a security chain on one, winch on the other, piece of mind.
You can cover yourself a fair bit for both forward and aft movement on the trailer with a setup like mine below. Just one length of chain fixed both ends, with a turnbuckle in the middle. As you can see, the big snaplink on the safety is through the strongest part of the boatlatch, between the posts.
interesting how the bow stop has been made obsolete by the boat catch, first thought are that the vibration from the winch post will rub and rattle the thin surface area of the boat catch side to side causing micro stress cracking around the hull where it mates to the hull. just a observation is all , also if one were to break down , do the maritime rescue tow you back using the boat catch. it looks stronger than normal bow eyes.
As to strength, it would be about the same, if you are using comparable diameters. My standard retrieve eye was 12mm, the Boatlatch was the one for larger boats, so also 12mm. Piece of cake to fit to boat, as the top thru-hull stud is fixed, and the bottom one slides up and down to allow for differing centres. If you hooked on at the top part of the eye assembly, where the winch hook would normally go, it would be much the same as the standard type eye for towing purposes. I don't pull the catch eye hard against the bow roller, just lightly. You'll only wear thru the roller quicker. I'd already been through one bow roller on that boat, was pulling it up hard with the standard eye against the black (rubber) roller, wore through to the core on one trip.
It's the bottom "loop" that let's go in an "oh shit" event
So what were the circumstances, and how did it actually fail? clean break, distort badly? Was the boat being held solely by the catch emchanism? Enquiring minds need some detail
Tow vehicle was run off the road in a road rage incident. The boat catch was a twisted mangled mess. Whether a traditional eye set up would have held could also be up for debate but the catch certainly did not. Boat ended up off the trailer in the gully in the middle of the highway and was a write off I think. I saw it later at Cruisecraft being assessed for repair
Load restraints have never been designed for crashes.