Time to sort out the trailer, now that the boat's nearly ready

[jesse_boston]

Been working through a bunch of deferred maintenance from the last owner of the boat, overheating, leaking bellows, rotted risers, wrong spark plugs and fuel filter etc.

It's a 23' Doral sterndrive on a '99 Karavan tandem axle trailer.

On the trailer, I've finished rewiring, putting on the last two new LED lights tomorrow.

The bunks are pretty well rotted out, one is held on by a strap at this point.
I picked up some 2x6 PT and was going to swap out the worst of the bunks first... I tried jacking the front up all the way with the jack on top of an 8x8, then stacking up 8x8's under the keel (is it called a keel when it isn't a sailboat?) and then lowering the front, but that didn't do anything, it still has tons of weight on the bunk...

So my questions:
* any ideas on how to get weight off the front bunk?

* should I be avoiding pressure treated wood?

* what is wrong with my winch setup? As it is, I can't get the boat all the way forward, the lower of the two rollers tries to flip up and stops the boat from coming in any further, then I have to winch out a few turns and manhandle the roller back down, winch in a bit, rinse and repeat until I've thoroughly pissed off the next person in line at the launch.
Twice I've driven home and felt like the boat was going to flip the truck if I went too fast, with about 20 pounds of tongue weight.

 

[jesse_boston]

Clearly previous owner messed with the winch, but... how is it supposed to be?
Should I remove the extension bar, and if so which hole should I use for the double roller thing?
And, should the whole winch/roller thing be higher up on the bar?

 

[GA_Boater]

20 pounds on tongue weight! Move the winch tower closer to the ball before the swaying trailer wipes you out. And dump that extension, it looks like a good 6" or more long, that will help with the tongue weight.

Raise the winch so the strap is pulling straight to the bow eye. The way it is now you're trying to pull the bow down, no wonder it's so hard.

I would try to use the center hole on the bow roller bracket. With the winch raised, the strap won't be riding on the roller.

 

[tpenfield]

OK . . .

Any chance you can get the boat in the water for the day and swap out all of the bad bunk wood? Pressure Treated may be OK, but it can be incompatible with some metals ( aluminum :noidea: )

As for the bow stop . . . :facepalm:

It looks like the PO extended the bow stop aft about 1 foot (via the rusty piece) . . . thus the mere 20 lbs of tongue weight. I'm surprised I did not see your boat on the evening news with that setup.

Take out that extra piece and reattach the bow rollers . . . get the boat snug up . . . I guess you will have to put it in the water . . . and then see where you are at for tongue weight.

I have jacked up my 24 footer at the chine on one side at a time to do bottom painting . . . Making sure to have redundant support and good safety measures. . . . that might work to get at the bunks, rather than lifting the bow or stern.

 

[jesse_boston]

I'm surprised it was as sturdy as it was, otherwise I wouldn't have driven it home. I was exaggerating a bit when I said 20 lbs, it was probably more like 75, but I'd like to see 350-450lbs to feel safe... the hour to drive it home from Springfield became 2 hours plus I was driving so slow.

Thank you both for the responses, hopefully the next time on the ramp will be less of a pain in the ass.

Raised up the winch bracket, removed the stupid extension thing.
Need to buy some more grade 8 galvanized hardware, but it's looking a lot less janky.

Looks like it'll come forward about 6-8 inches set up like this, which matches the distance from the rear bunks to the transom. Maybe I'll bring the bathroom scale my partner hates to see how close I am to 10%... boat is 3700 lbs dry, galvanized trailer is probably another thousand, so 500 on the tongue should be about right.

And of course being a boat, I couldn't stop there. Had to go investigating why the tongue wobbled independently of the rest of the trailer. Turns out there's a through bolt that holds the tongue to the two front to back runners. No washers, rusted bolt partly pulling through the box steel, sides of the box no longer completely vertical. I wonder if I can find a couple quarter inch thick "fender" washers at least 2 inches across...

 

[briangcc]

Last pic looks much better. I'd see what you can do to get a safety strap/chain on that bow eye. On my Four Winns, there was the equivalent of a transom tie-down used to ratchet the bow eye down to the trailer for safety/security. May be a possibility depending on your trailer setup. I prefer that over my current setup on the Chap which just has another hook attacked to some aircraft cable which in turn is bolted to the winch post.

Pretty sure the bunks on my Four Winns (painted steel trailer) and on my current Chap (powder coated) are pressure treated wood. But I only see fresh water so your mileage may vary

 

[GA_Boater]

Much, Much better, Jesse. The junk extension gone and the winch raised will increase tongue weight considerably with the boat being more forward.

Do you have a spare tire? Mounting one on the tongue will add weight and is more than nice to have, more like a necessity.

I'm not familiar with that type of trailer, so the other guys can give you ideas for the tongue to frame bolt fix.

 

[jesse_boston]

Turns out there's no such thing as grade 8 galvanized. Hmm. Locally I can only get grade "A307" galvanized. I think given the torque that this bolt seems to see I'm going to go for grade 8 and just paint it :/

 

[jesse_boston]

This should hold the tongue quite a bit more securely. No more wobble!

 

[jesse_boston]

I managed to scrape the gelcoat while unloading... anchor got caught up on the winch handle. Gotta be more careful and stow the anchor when towing.

Here it is now that I've been to the lake, was easy to winch it further onto the trailer this time, plenty of tongue weight as I like it.

Thanks everyone, now I don't dread pulling it out anymore!

Will probably pick up some of the newer giant rollers to keep the boat a lil' further from the steel.

And I suppose I should start checking the brake system (surge drums), the PO cut all the lines when replacing the axles and didn't bother to hook them back up.

 

[jesse_boston]

lolcry...

And of course the next thing that would happen is a wheel bearing would explode. Spindle fortunately looks okay!

Now to figure out what the bearing is based on the measurements... Hopefully the parts store can match it up

 

[dingbat]

Turns out there's no such thing as grade 8 galvanized. Hmm.

That should tell you something about the need for grade 8 bolts on the boat trailer.

 

[jesse_boston]

Replaced 2 out of 4 bearing sets, repacked #3. #4 still had nice clear looking grease.

Will do it all again in 3 months...