Odd trailer

[reelfishin]

I picked up a boat the other day with a strange looking trailer. It's a bolt together v frame trailer with tilt and full rollers. The odd part is that the axle carraige portion is made of aluminum angle iron but the main frame is all steel. The frame has a decal on it but it's completely faded away. The boat is from the early 60's and the last registration was back in 1965, so it's pretty old and probably came with the boat.
The outer rails are open ended and attached to the tongue tubing with a bolt on bracket. The axle carraige or assembly is u bolted to the two main frame tubes. It has four roller groups attached to four separate points, each having a single bunk bracket.
The part that got me was the aluminum portion on a steel frame. It's made so that you can adjust the axle position, and all of it looks to be original.
What really gets me is that I had at first thought that the main frame was patched or extended, but the bends in the tubes where it comes around to the fender area are boxed in with flat steel plate, leaving a gap. In other words, they didn't bend any tubing, when they changed direction, they simply cut it and attached it together with a piece of flat steel.
It's also a very wide trailer, which lets the boat sit super low. It will be great for loading but will require running with the motor raised on the road. It's actually a hair over 108 wide overall. The boat is only a 7' beam 17' trihull but it sits completely between the fenders on this trailer.
Does anyone know of any other steel / aluminum trailers?
I would think that the combination would cause concerns wtih corrosion being disimilar metals?

 

[Bondo]

Re: Odd trailer

It's actually a hair over 108 wide overall.

It sounds like it's Homemade,.......

Back in 1965,.... The Legal Width Limit was 96",......
It went to 102", back in the mid-80s.......

So,....... It's Still Too Wide to legally haul...........

 

[CATransplant]

Re: Odd trailer

It does sound homemade to me, too. It also sounds like it wasn't done in a professional way. You can probably get away with the width, but it's unnecessary for you boat, I'd think.

If it were me, I think I'd be keeping an eye open for a replacement. Around here, trailers are pretty expensive...unless they have a boat on them. Then, they're often free, oddly enough.

With all the older trihull boats out there, you might just be able to score a good trailer (with the boat) for little money. I'd think about it.

 

[reelfishin]

Re: Odd trailer

I was thinking home made myself until I got the title for it the other day. It has a several foil type name decals on it but I can't make out what they said. Someone has painted the main steel frame flat black. The aluminum axle carraige looks factory, the cuts on the aluminum are too precise and the pieces all interlock and fit perfectly together. No grind marks or saw cuts on any of the ends or edges. The hubs are also aluminum and cast, they are aluminum with a cast or steel center where the bearings ride. The axle is cambered and the hubs are 5 lug. The rims are galvanized but look like regular car rims, not the newer spoked pattern or holes. They also have small chrome hubcaps that say AeroCraft on them to match the boat.
It looks to me like who ever made this either didn't have the ability to bend tubing or chose not to. If this was mass produced, they may have been going for a modular type of design were as they could use the same parts to build several different size trailers? The plates that join the tubing look like they were stamped not hand made. All of the harware is carraige bolts and the tubing is all sleeved and the holes are sqaure cut to accept the carraige bolts. If it was home made, it's a pretty detailed job. The width don't seem out of the ordinary to me, I have two other trailers, although they are tandem axle that measure 108 total. The added width should make for easy launching, it allows the boat to be very low in the saddle so to speak, it won't take much water to float it off.
The rollers are more modern looking, they may have simply been added in place of the bunks, it looks like they may have just added a four gang of rollers on a 2x3 steel tube to every existing bunk bracket.