Sorry I didn't check in, I've had one hard long day..... but it was a very good day!
Got there at 07:30 and hit the ground running. Soil was sand. Wheels were IN there. There were some pieces of lumber under the frame that kept it from sinking faster. Two port tires completely shot..... starboard held air. Got some in there and there was a bald spare I put on the port side. Jacked it up far enough to get some 2-by under there. Hooked it up and got it about two feet forward and then got the van stuck. Dug into the sand. Disconnected and got the van out with my traction boards. Repositioned and hooked up with the van ON the traction boards and managed to get the thing on the blacktop driveway.
Then I started jacking it up. Originally used a 4x6 but very quickly realized that wasn't going to cut it. Ran out to a local junk yard and borrowed a 12 foot section of truck chassis..... basically a huge C channel. That worked. Slowly worked it up and built cribbing as I went along. Put a lot of long drywall screws in there. They were pretty stable. The C-channel did bend a little but it worked. Eventually got it high enough to get the tail end of the trailer under there. At that point I was "safe" and kept building blocks on the trailer as we worked our way up.
Like someone remarked above, we had a long way to go up if the axles were going to clear my fenders. So I decided to take the axles off. My HUGE and I mean HUUUUGE luck was that there was little or no corrosion on U-bolts and spring shackle bolts. That and someone had not over tightened things. After a little "treatment" from Dr. PB Blaster every bolt came of without major resistance. (The same went for the wheel bolts). Again, that was a very nice break.
With the axles off I was able to get it where I wanted it, with the leg over the triangle. I screwed some 4x6 chunks to the trailer bed and strapped it down as well as the axles/wheels etc etc.
As far as the condition of the boat...... The hull is nice, so is the trailer. Little or no dings/rust. Saw a missing rivet or two.... hmmmm. Floors and stern are oatmeal, mush, worm food. The engine doesn't look too bad, but I think it may go away. Have to think about that. All the cushions are there, but they are in sad shape. If I can't save them they can be patterns. So, it looks like we're going bare hull on this one......
So now I'm on the road back home. It's a wee bit tongue heavy. Even with the load leveling hitch I'm squatting more than I'd like, so the front trailer tires and rear van tires will be working harder than ideal. It handles fine though. So I'll just keep it at around 60mph.
Going to be a long night.....but I like the light traffic at night....
