Roller Trailer to Bunk Trailer Conversion

Hi all, I recently purchased a boat and the trailer was included, unfortunately the trailer was in bad shape. I have replaced the tires, Lights, springs, and axle. currently it is equipped with "Rollers" it is missing ALL of the rollers and the previous owner took some metal banding and banded some 2x6 wood on top of what is left of the rollers. I would like to remove the rollers and replace with regular bunks, but I am unsure how to measure to know which length bunk brackets or how many brackets to purchase. Also is it better to set up with the regular 2x4 or 2x6, or is it better to use a heavier 4x8 on its side like I have seen some of the bigger vessels using. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Re: Roller Trailer to Bunk Trailer Conversion

Here's my bunk set up in case it's helpful to visualize it. http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w200/ezmobee/New Boat/DSCF2352.jpg

What size is your boat?

Re: Roller Trailer to Bunk Trailer Conversion

How big is your boat?? That would be helpful to answer the bunk size question you have. Also, pictures would be helpful. Many roller trailers would need additional cross braces added to the trailer frame in order to be able to mount bunks using traditional bunk brackets.

I converted my roller trailer to bunks and I mounted the bunks to the brackets that held the rollers. I actually made brackets though. The banding sounds like a hack. I personally don't see anything wrong with the approach I took depending on the trailer that it is done to. On mine the rollers didin't just flop down like some. With enough weight on them they will move, but are pretty stable. If yours is the type where the rollers all just flop down when the boat is off the trailer then I wouldn't recommend my approach.

Here are a couple pictures of how I did mine. 2 seasons on it now and working great. I also did the same mod to my brother in laws boat a last year and it worked great. Get us some more detail and I'm sure someone can help you out.

Re: Roller Trailer to Bunk Trailer Conversion

Sorry, Completly forgot to tell what boat it is. 1988 18' Seaswirl Bowrider (Fish/Ski) with 1988 Johnson 120hp Outboard

Re: Roller Trailer to Bunk Trailer Conversion

Pretty cool conversion there 109jb!

Re: Roller Trailer to Bunk Trailer Conversion

You might want to rethink converting. You can buy rollers from great lakes marine or I boats here, or used ones from a salvage yard. So much easier to load. I have had both and will never go back to bunks again. I don't want to get anyone upset by my opinion but it is my .02

Re: Roller Trailer to Bunk Trailer Conversion

I agree^^^^ but if you do convert 2x6 bunks are MORE than heavy enough

Re: Roller Trailer to Bunk Trailer Conversion

Nice job 109,
What did you use to attach the bunks to the roller ends?

Re: Roller Trailer to Bunk Trailer Conversion

Ironpig said:

Nice job 109,
What did you use to attach the bunks to the roller ends?

Click to expand...

If you look in one of the pictures I took some steel tube and some steel plate and welded up brackets. The flat plat bolts to the bunks and the steel tube fits over where the rollers went. A cotter pin keeps them on the axles.

edit: It is the 4th picture.

Re: Roller Trailer to Bunk Trailer Conversion

Personally, I would never have a roller trailer again. I prefer the bunks. For walking a boat on to a trailer and for shallow water launches the rollers are very nice, but there are places where I put my boat in that walking it on is not an option unless you want to get very wet.

I launch at a friends piece of property on a river somtimes where there is a ramp but the Army Corp of Engineers won't allow him to put a dock in because it is in a waterway used for commerce and is a little narrow theere. I usually go there when I go fishing and launch and just leave the trailer in position until I come back and then coast it up the bunks.

Solo drive on loading with a roller requires leaving the engine in gear until the winch is hooked up. With a bunk trailer there is enough friction that the boat sticks.

With the bunk trailer I can coast on, shut down, raise the motor, climb over the front onto the tongue, winch the boat the rest of the way and pull out.

When my trailer was a roller I had to cost on, leave it in gear (which I don't like to do), climb over the front onto the tongue, winch it on, climb back in the boat, shut off the motor, raise it, climb back out, then pull out. It was a real PITA as far as I am concerned.

Also, when I say "drive-on" I do not mean power loading. When I drive on I just use forward momentum to coast onto the trailer.

If roller trailers work in your particular situation then they are great but there are situations where they are not.

Just my 2 cents.

Re: Roller Trailer to Bunk Trailer Conversion

Depending on what style of roller trailer you have, I came up with a poor man's solution for a buddy with no money. His rollers were shot, the trailer was an Easy Loader with four packs of four rollers. All but two rollers were so bad they were crumbling. I simply removed the rollers, and made up 8 short carpeted bunks, and drilled them to each replace two rollers on each side of each roller pack, the result was the same ride height but no rollers, the function of the trailer changed very little other than the boat needed to go a bit deeper when launching. He later added nylon slides to the top of each bunk, making it a very slick set up.
Just picture, each pack of 4 rollers now being two short bunks that can still pivot and move as did the rollers.

Re: Roller Trailer to Bunk Trailer Conversion

reelfishin said:

Depending on what style of roller trailer you have, I came up with a poor man's solution for a buddy with no money. His rollers were shot, the trailer was an Easy Loader with four packs of four rollers. All but two rollers were so bad they were crumbling. I simply removed the rollers, and made up 8 short carpeted bunks, and drilled them to each replace two rollers on each side of each roller pack, the result was the same ride height but no rollers, the function of the trailer changed very little other than the boat needed to go a bit deeper when launching. He later added nylon slides to the top of each bunk, making it a very slick set up.
Just picture, each pack of 4 rollers now being two short bunks that can still pivot and move as did the rollers.

Click to expand...

Just curious....when you add up the cost of the pressure treated wood, the carpet and the slicks, wouldn't new rollers have been cheaper?

Re: Roller Trailer to Bunk Trailer Conversion

109jb said:

when I go fishing and launch and just leave the trailer in position until I come back and then coast it up the bunks.

Click to expand...

Do you mean you leave the trailer (and wheels) submerged all that time?

Re: Roller Trailer to Bunk Trailer Conversion

JimS123 said:

Do you mean you leave the trailer (and wheels) submerged all that time?

Click to expand...

Yep. Pretty much. I'm not talking days. A couple hours at most.

edit: I replace seals and repack bearings every year and have never had a problem.

Re: Roller Trailer to Bunk Trailer Conversion

JimS123 said:

Just curious....when you add up the cost of the pressure treated wood, the carpet and the slicks, wouldn't new rollers have been cheaper?

Click to expand...

When I did my BIL's boat we bought four 8 foot PT 2 x 4's (about $2.50 each), some cheap outdoor 6'x9' carpet from menards ($10 if I remember right), a small tub of outdoor carpet adhesive (about $10), and some carriage bolts (probably $5 worth). The total was about $35 to convert to bunks. Now we did it because we both prefer bunks, but if we had to replace rollers it would cost a lot more than $35. Some things to note, I already had the staples for the carpet and the tools to do the job.

I forgot to mention before that when I did my BIL's trailer I didn't make brackets and we opted to just drill holes through the axle that the roller mounts to and installed a carriage bolt through with a nut underneath. We counter-bored the bunk so that head of the carriage bolt was below the top of the bunk.

EDIT: I wanted to add that I would not do a roller to bunk conversion unless you just prefer bunks as I do.

Re: Roller Trailer to Bunk Trailer Conversion

reelfishin said:

Depending on what style of roller trailer you have, I came up with a poor man's solution for a buddy with no money. His rollers were shot, the trailer was an Easy Loader with four packs of four rollers. All but two rollers were so bad they were crumbling. I simply removed the rollers, and made up 8 short carpeted bunks, and drilled them to each replace two rollers on each side of each roller pack, the result was the same ride height but no rollers, the function of the trailer changed very little other than the boat needed to go a bit deeper when launching. He later added nylon slides to the top of each bunk, making it a very slick set up.
Just picture, each pack of 4 rollers now being two short bunks that can still pivot and move as did the rollers.

Click to expand...

Sounds similar to what I did. Was it the same style trailer as in my pictures?? When I did mine I considered the 8 short bunks, but it was pointed out to me that if the short bunk pivoted the wrong way there would be a possibility of spearing the hull. That is why I went with 8 foot bunks that span all the rollers in a line. On my trailer I did have to move the front set of roller brackets over a bit to line up with the back set. On my BIL's trailer they were already in line.

Re: Roller Trailer to Bunk Trailer Conversion

We mounted the 2x4 sections end wise, and simply drilled two holes in each board to correspond to the spacing of the roller arms. The boards were simply held in place just like the rollers were. I came up with this set up after my buddy suggested that he could simply make wooden rollers at work for nothing. Figuring that wood rollers would only split and result in a damaged hull, I made the 2x4 mini bunks. The individual bunks sort of self limited their own travel, the shafts they were mounted on would only move as far as they would have with the roller on them. The ends of the wood were also rounded off a bit on a belt sander. This trailer used steel roller arms, I believe the brand was EZ Loader.
I never even thought about top mounting the bunks as in the pics above, it just seemed natural to just drill two 3/4" holes in each bunk and attach them using the same hardware that held on the rollers. This way there's no screws to come loose, or nuts or bolts to rust, just cotter pins and washers.

The wood was free, they were cutoff pieces given to me by a neighbor/contractor, and carpet was regular indoor/outdoor carpet, I bought a huge remnant a number of years ago and have been cutting strips off it for years to cover trailer bunks. I think I paid $10 for the 10x15' or so piece at a local carpet outlet. The carpet is attached with spray cement, gotten from work, and stapled along the bottom edge with stainless staples, about $8 a pack, which will do about 5 trailers.
Rollers for that trailer were $10 each, plus hardware kits, $4, making the rollers $225, plus shipping. The nylon glide strips were take offs given to my buddy for nothing.

Re: Roller Trailer to Bunk Trailer Conversion

reelfishin said:

We mounted the 2x4 sections end wise, and simply drilled two holes in each board to correspond to the spacing of the roller arms.

Click to expand...

Oh. I see how you did it. The reason I mounted them flat on top was because I wanted them to conform to the shape of the boat. If you look in my pictures you can see they gracefully curve to follow the hull contour.

Re: Roller Trailer to Bunk Trailer Conversion

I thought I would add some pictures of my current set-up if for no other reason than to let every one have a good chuckle. I cant help but wonder that the amount of time the previous owner spent to do it this way, he could have done it correctly or at least better than this. still cant help but shake my head every time I look at it, the pictures actually make it look some what ok compared to in person.

Re: Roller Trailer to Bunk Trailer Conversion

Pokertrampp said:

I thought I would add some pictures of my current set-up if for no other reason than to let every one have a good chuckle. I cant help but wonder that the amount of time the previous owner spent to do it this way, he could have done it correctly or at least better than this. still cant help but shake my head every time I look at it, the pictures actually make it look some what ok compared to in person.

Click to expand...

Someone should take away his engineering license.
The worst set up I've seen was a Load Rite trailer, that had 12 rollers when new, to which someone welded coil springs from a car to the end of each main roller beam, then bolted carpeted 2x6s on top of the springs. The result was a giant boat bobble head driving down the road. I had the pleasure of towing it home to get the two fresh outboard motors off it and about $3,500 worth of electronics. The guy couldn't figure out why I was cross strapping the thing every which way before I left. ( I also learned to take along my own set of wheels and some spare hubs on those types of hauls).

The best set up I saw was a bunk trailer, with two 6x6 chunks of wood banded to the rear of the bunks on top, with nylon pallet banding. The boat was loaded on top of this rig so as to keep a trihull from hitting the fender tops. The guy had bought a trailer cheap and made it work anyway he could. The best part was that he raised the bow stop and winch stand up about a foot over the bow hook, so as to winch the boat up off the fenders when the winch was tight. This left only the two short sections of 6x6 wood in contact with the boat. This rig was ahead of me while loading up one Sunday afternoon at the ramp. The trailer was only a minor detail compared to the show he and the rest of his group put on both backing in and loading that boat.