Keep on Rollin’
OK, Spring has arrived, signs are that COVID-19 is loosening its grip on the world (but this could be a cruel mis leading to more mass suffering and death- UGH) so the thoughts of all members of the Cape Fear Flyfishers turn to thoughts of plying the brine in search of excitement and a batch of fish.
But to avoid having an unwelcomed form of excitement, now is the time to do some maintenance on something not all of us possess- a boat trailer. If you don’t have a boat trailer, read this anyway because it is likely you know someone with a boat trailer and they might decide to take you fishing. But before you go, you should go through a checklist with them to make sure your pleasant excursion doesn’t wind up involving road-side assistance, a wrecker and even, perhaps, the Highway Patrol.
Trailer Tires & Wheels
Trailers lead a very hard life in a hostile environment. They get dunked in the water repeatedly, some even in saltwater, then put out in the sun to dry. If you’re lucky, it rains on the way home so the rain water splashes up from the road and rinses much of the salt off- maybe. Their tires sit on the ground for months during the winter and develop flat spots. They sit out in the sun during the warm months and the sidewalls get baked. It is rare that their tread ever gets used up because other parts wear out first, particularly the sidewalls. So, what do you check?
Tires & the Spare
You do have a spare tire, don’t you? And beer-bellies don’t count. And you’ll need a bottle jack to jack up the trailer. A scissors jack can work but the old style supplied with most cars for decades with a rod mounted on a base with a ratcheted lifting section that climbs up the rod won’t work since the gunnels of most boats extend out over the trailer frame. The jack needs to fit under the trailer frame.
Check the tire pressure. The tires have been sitting around and losing air. Now’s the time to pump them up to the right pressure. Check the tire pressure every month since seasonal temperature fluctuations are sufficient to cause a swing in tire pressure. Even if the tires look OK, check the pressure. I put a boat on a trailer several years ago for a road trip. When we pulled the boat out of the water on the trailer, one of the tires was very, very flat. It had enough air to look OK when the trailer was empty. But adding 2,000+ pounds to it showed us it was flat.
Check the sidewalls to make sure they aren’t rotting. A blowout hauling a trailer at 60 mph will ruin your day and likely a whole lot more.
Check the wheel bearings and grease. Hook up the trailer to your tow vehicle and use your bottle jack to lift the tire(s) on one side and then the other. While the tire(s) is off the ground, try wiggling the tire and wheel. If it wiggles, you have a problem. Spin it around. If you hear a sandy, grinding noise, you have a problem. While it’s off the ground, check the tread. If parts of the tread are missing, you have a problem. I was taking a trip to Morehead City and was meeting some passengers at McDonalds on Long Beach Road. After loading up the gear, we decided it was time to reward ourselves with some food. As we walked around the trailer heading in to place our order, one of my companions looked at the tires from afar and saw a huge hunk of tread was missing. Fortunately, I had a spare (and a bottle jack). We changed the tire, drove to Morehead City without incident and got two new tires there for the trip home.
Regarding the grease in the wheel bearings, you need it. I had an old family trailer have a bearing failure years ago. I could tell something was wrong. A quick glance in the outside mirror showed that the trailer tire on that side of the trailer was wobbling pretty bad. Fortunately, I was less than a mile from my destination and limped in going very slow. That was one messed up bearing.
Fixing a bearing is a dirty and frustrating job. I’ve done it many times. Fortunately, you can buy a pre-assembled and greased wheel hub complete with greased bearings. This is something you can change out in 20 minutes instead of the hour or more it would take to put new bearings and seals in properly. I always carry a spare when I’m towing. Make sure you get a hub that fits your trailer. Otherwise, you are pretty much out of luck.
The cleanliness of your wheels (and even the side of your boat) may give you a clue as to a potential problem. If the inside of a trailer wheels is greasy, chances are the rear seal has gone bad. If the outside of the wheel is covered with grease, it is more likely you did a sloppy job the last time you topped off you bearing buddy and grease came from the dirty nipple over which you place the grease gun fitting. At the very least, wipe off the excess grease from the nipple after you put more grease in your bearings.
The most important thing you can do is stop after about 30 minutes of driving and feel the bearings. If they are only slightly warm, you are OK. If they are too hot to hold onto, you need new bearings immediately. You won’t get far if you try to keep on driving.
Lights
Trailer lights can be downright aggravating to the point of being demonic. I am convinced the devil has a whole army of spirits that go around and mess up trailer lights. Trailer lights matter if you care about fellow drivers being able to see your lights to determine if you are going to turn or stop.
In days of yore, all boaters knew to unplug their trailer lights before backing the trailer into the water. An old wives tale, you ask? No. You don’t want a hot bulb (you have been turning, putting on the brakes and other such actions associated with the trailer that would heat the bulbs) backing into cold or at least cooler water and cracking the light bulb. Besides, it’s a pain in the neck to change a bulb when you are really ready to go fishing or head home at night after a fishing trip. Who is their right mind wants to have to change a light bulb? Of course, LED lights don’t heat up so you can leave your lights attached and working.
Some people move their trailer lights up onto the guide poles on either side of the trailer’s rear end. This way, they don’t get wet. Secondly, they tend to be a bit more visible up higher, though most people are accustomed to seeing trailer lights down low. But having bright LED lights up high will get their attention.
Sometimes the lights on the trailer are in good shape, relatively speaking, but still don’t burn. Here the answer is that sometimes a good ground is not established from the trailer through its hitch to the hitch ball on the tow vehicle. When I have trailer lights that don’t work, I hook up the trailer and drive it around the block before jumping to the conclusion that the lights need special loving care. It happens, particularly if there is a lot of rust build up on the ball or in the cup of the hitch that fits over the ball.
Word to the Wise- Cross Those Chains, Check that Collar & Weigh the Blessed Thing
Two times in my life I have been driving down the highway with a boat trailer in tow (once with a boat on the trailer and once without) when the trailer a bounced off the ball. Talk about fun!! The trailer was bouncing and swaying and running into the rear of my tow vehicle. Fortunately, I had crossed the safety chains (the right chain to the left side of the hitch and vice versa), providing a cradle of sorts that kept the trailer tongue from digging into the road surface, showering the whole area with sparks and scaring me exceedingly. But I was spared the agony of having the trailer break loose and go bounding down the road with a mind of its own. That would have been a very bad day.
So, what happened? Why did the trailer hitch come off the ball? It turns out that the collar on the trailer that holds the ball in the pocket of the hitch had loosened. Ordinarily, when you push down the handle of the hitch assembly it clamps that collar around the underside of the ball so it won’t come loose. Apparently, the collar had worked loose enough to be able to pop off. I am a firm believer, then, in crossing your safety chains. It can make a profound difference. As a result, I have made it part of my routine to run my fingers around the collar to make sure it is tight before I insert my lock into the handle.
Speaking of Locks
I am not a big fan of giving away boats to strangers. Therefore, I take certain steps to keep such from happening. For instance, I use a lock to secure the tow bar in my towing hitch. It is a special lock that fits through the holes in the tow bar receiver bolted to the underside of the car’s rear end. In addition, I use a special lock designed for the handle on the trailer hitch that clamps or releases the collar under the ball. Then brother Charlie has spot welded each towing ball to its own tow bar. That way a person cannot simply unscrew the nut on the ball lift the ball out of my tow bar, insert it on their own tow bar and drive away. In addition, I use a special lock designed for the handle on the trailer hitch that clamps down to lock the collar to the ball. Some people go two steps further when the trailer is sitting unattended. One trick is to bundle up the safety chains and lock them together so they can’t be used to cradle the trailer hitch so the trailer can be towed to a less visible location and be fixed so it can be towed in a normal manner. The second thing some people do is chain the wheels to the trailer frame so that even if the resourceful thief figures out a way to change out the wheels & tires on a trailer, the heavy chains on the wheels will drag them bouncing along, attracting people’s attention and identifying the nefarious actions of the thief.
Back to Routine Maintenance
While we are getting ready for a fun season of boating or kayaking by checking out the equipment on our trailers, there are five other areas that deserve our attention.
-Bunks/rollers– Do the rollers roll? Do the bunks have adequate support? Has the carpet on the bunks worn thin? Are the bunk boards still straight or have they warped? Check them out. If the trailer doesn’t provide adequate support to the boat while being trailered or even just stored on a trailer, the boat can be damaged.
-Adequate support of the stern– Outboards have a lot of weight on the transom. Make sure the transom has support from the bunks or rollers (depending upon what the trailer uses). You don’t want a foot of more of the boat hanging off beyond the end of the bunks. Adjust the post at the bow of the boat to pull the boat forward, if necessary. But remember to weigh the tongue weight after you do. The rule of thumb is you want between 10-15% of the total weight of the trailer on the tongue to have the trailer behave properly behind your tow vehicle (no weaving or bouncing). Remember to determine the tongue weight when the boat is loaded with its regular equipment and gas in the tank. How do you do weigh it and find the tongue weight? Unless you have a really, really big trailer that would require a special type of hitch (a weight distributing hitch), you can use your bathroom scales. With the trailer hitched but not locked down with the collar and your trailer wheels blocked so they can’t move, put your scales under the third wheel (the little wheel assembly near the front of the trailer used to lift the trailer on and off the ball and to move the trailer around when not attached to the tow vehicle) and crank up the trailer until the hitch is not sitting on the ball. Look at the dial and that is the tongue weight (or close enough to it). Adjust your trailer and boat placement as necessary. If you have to move the boat back too far and the transom is unsupported or if the boat has to go too far forward and the engine shaft bangs into a trailer beam, you need a new trailer. This will be cheaper in the long run than driving an unsafe rig that will weave and bounce on you or cause problems with braking because your trailer is not suited for your vessel.
-Check your license tag holder. This is a simple thing to do. But how many of us do it? We don’t. Then one day we realize our license plate for the boat trailer is missing. Someone may have stolen it. The chances are much better than your sloth has allowed the plastic to wear out and the tag simply fell off. While talking about license tags, North Carolina offers a multi-year tag ($75 the last time I bought one) that is good for as long as you own the trailer. If you plan on keeping your trailer for 3 years or longer, you will save money over having to renew your license tag each year. If you happen to lose one (or have it stolen), you go to DMV, sign a statement that your license tag was lost or stolen, pay $5 for that to be notarized then get a new multi-year tag for only $20. That’s better than having to pay another $75.
-Check your tie-down straps. I have happened upon wrecks where a boat decided to take off and fly like an airplane when the strap for the bow attached to the post & winch and any tie-down straps for the stern- either one for each side (usually from the transom hooks to hooks secured to the trailer) or a “belly strap” that goes across the boat from one side to the other and attached to the trailer on both sides.
-Check the general condition of your trailer. I had (the operative word) a trailer for my small jon boat that was steel- obviously designed for use in fresh water. But I have used the jon boat a lot in saltwater. In preparation for a trip to Weldon, NC to fish for stripers several years ago, I noticed the trailer had a lot of rust at various points of contact and stress. Realizing that I would be hauling that rig down several nice highways at 65-70 mph, I suddenly saw a picture of driving along, hearing some strange sounds as the tow vehicle handling went haywire and seeing a horrid sight in my rearview mirror- the small jon boat taking to the air while still attatched to the wench by its strap and a security chain while the bulk of the trailer was doing cart wheels in the middle of the highway as cars and trucks on said highway took unsuccessful evasive maneuvers. Chills went up and down my spine and I went out an bought a new trailer for the jon boat. We made our trip and caught a few fish.
After returning home, I drove the old trailer up to the farm in Winnabow. Charlie and I started planning to build a BBQ trailer with a 55 gal. drum fixed up as the cooker. Wow, we were going to become the hog pickin’ pros (cooking a whole hog and letting people pick at it once it’s done). Several months later, Charlie was up at the farm and decided to do some preliminary work on the trailer. So, he pulled it out of the woods with a tractor. He had set the trailer down and moved the tractor out of the way of his work. As he was getting ready to begin, the trailer broke in two, right where the tongue attaches to the main part of the trailer. Just snap. That was it. Phew. I got chills all over again when Charlie told me the story. I could have been driving that trailer with the boat on it and wound up having a very bad day. I had dodged a big bullet. So, look at the general condition of the trailer. Either fix the weak points or get a new trailer. It’s a matter of life or death.
Summary
It doesn’t matter if you have a big trailer with tandem axels or a small trailer for your kayak. There are things you must do to maintain it and keep it helping you transport your fishing vessel safely.
A Final Word
Finally, I recommend one piece of equipment for all boaters with a trailer- get a good lug bolt wrench- the X-shaped kind that provides 4 different sizes for lug bolts. Lug bolts can get attached very tightly by tire company personnel or when you are tightening the bolts yourself. The X shape gives you space to use your weight to break loose a recalcitrant bolt. Having different sizes means you can use the same wrench for most lug bolts.
Don’t forget to check out the resources of Fly Fishers International at www.flyfishersinternational.org.
Also, Google this and other topics of interest and go to YouTube for seemingly endless videos.
