Trailer repairs

[Ozzie]

As per Ian’s request I'm starting a thread on my trailer repair.

Like you Ian, I’ve done winch, wheels, tyres, bearings etc last haul out As the trailer only gets used for haulout, there has not been much wear and tear there, but as Neil Young intoned “Rust Never Sleeps” and the bastard doesn’t either.

I’m unsure of the value of gal trailers. If you get creeping rust under the gal it rapidly spreads. If I was designing a trailer I think I’d use all open channels of larger sections rather than square tube. And pant it regularly. You can’t flush salt water out of closed tube and if you get even a pin hole in the weld it will get into a submerged trailer and be impossible to get out. Hot dip gal can’t get inside square tube, so no protection. Even my side open channels have rusted out under the gal .

My advice to anyone who still has a sound trailer is to drill a fill hole at the high point of your square sections and drain hole at the lowest point and flood the tube with fish oil. Then drain it out. Put seals/ screws/ bolts in the holes. But remove them after use and flush the cavities out. AND paint the whole trailer with fish oil. It will look awful but a rusty trailer looks a lot worse. The oldest known boat in human existence found by archeologists was reeds waterproofed with fish oil.

More to come.

[IanS]

Thanks Ozzie, I'll make a small contribution here. These are the hubs/brakes for the standard trailer:

https://sunriseint.com.au/product/9-mec ... ravan-set/

Holden HT 5 stud 63.9mm centres
Bearing LM11
My notes say 10" but the invoice says 9"
2 x HHD9HTLM Holden HT 9" Brake Drum - LM
1 x MB9P-L 9" Mechanical Brake Backing Plate - Left Hand Side
1 x MB9P-R 9" Mechanical Brake Backing Plate - Right Hand Side
4 x Mounting Bolts and Nuts for Mechanical backing plate

The kit comes with bearings, seals and dust caps.

As per Ozzie's comments, my trailer has nuts welded in to allow the rear-most rectangular sections to be filled with oil and sealed with a bolt and nylon washer. I might try doing the same for the remaining sections.

[Peter T]

My new trailer cost me around $4000 which included all materials except wheels and tyres and also included galvanising. But no allowance for labour.
Hope this helps anyone who may be thinking about building one.

[no way]

Ozzie. The last time I had hollow section steel hot dipped we had to drill sizeable holes at either end so the zinc was able to get inside and also to stop the seam of the tube splitting because of gas build up inside