Help with my first trailer rubbing off paint...

[Tdubbs24]

I just bought a 98 Crestliner 1650 fish hawk with a 98 Shoreland'r trailer. Keep in mind this is my first trailer. It looks almost like this:

It has the rollers in the back and in the front only has that center piece acting as a guide. There is NOTHING to roll on on this guide plate, it basically looks like a piece of coated metal bent in a v shape and bolted to the frame. It looks like it is factory installed. It works great to center the boat every time but the entire bottom length of the boat that hits this "guide" has the paint worn off of it and looks like crap. Is this normal? Any easy ways to stop it from removing paint or scratching the bottome center of the boat? Replace it with somethign?

 

[dlngr]

Re: Help with my first trailer rubbing off paint...

My shor'lander had rollers where your front 'guide' is,plus one more roller where the 'wishbone' shape meets the tongue. never put a single mark on the bottom of the 16 foot white fiberglass boat...[Forester open bow] I think you have something missing.

 

[Tdubbs24]

Re: Help with my first trailer rubbing off paint...

My shor'lander had rollers where your front 'guide' is,plus one more roller where the 'wishbone' shape meets the tongue. never put a single mark on the bottom of the 16 foot white fiberglass boat...[Forester open bow] I think you have something missing.

Yeah, I researched a little more and found that this was a style this used back then. Its just a rubber/plastic coated piece of metal that the keel slides on. Most were retrofitted with a keel roller(like you speak of). I plan to replace the existing with a keel roller so I should fix the problem.

Any suggest a good way to paint the now exposed aluminum keel?