The rust was eating my 1984 model year trailer alive. The leaf springs were shot, the surge brakes didn't work (this made for a few interesting stops last year!). So, I dropped the boat off at the river and took the trailer home for some TLC.
I ordered a bunch of parts from http://www.TrailerPartsSuperstore.com. They had just about everything I needed. I ordered a new 6600lb hydraulic brake actuator/hitch, two new drum brake backing plates, brake line kit and U-bolts and leaf spring shackles. I had to order the leaf springs elsewhere because my old trailer uses some short 18 1/2-inch leaf springs that I couldn't find anywhere else. I also went to an online nuts and bolts store and bought a bunch of stainless steel hardware to put it all back together with.
I dropped the axles and pulled them out from under the trailer, removed the trailer fenders and just started grinding. I must have run that grinder with the steel brush for 20 hours over the last two months! As I got the rust cleaned up on one piece, it would get a nice coat of Rust-oleum Rust Converter paint. I was still waiting for leaf springs to come in, so I kept grinding and painting.
The old brake actuator assembly had gotten water in it and had rusted inside...there was no saving it. Upon further inspection, I also noticed that the front bolt had broken through the mounting hole in the trailer frame. This thing has too much tongue weight to tell the truth...I tried backing it off a little last year, but then the boat wallows behind me like a damned snake when I'm going down the road. I'm just glad that I started this rebuild before something terrible happened! I removed the old brake actuator and proceeded to chop off the end of the trailer frame so that I could attach the new actuator to some fresh steel. I drilled a couple of well-placed holes, grabbed a couple of stainless steel bolts and Wha-Lah! New brake actuator attached!
By now, I had received the leaf springs from the UPS guy. I pulled them out of the box and slapped them on...put the new u-bolts and shackles in place and hammered them home with the impact wrench. Then I removed the old brake backing plates, which looked like they hadn't worked in about 15 years. There was grease all around the inside of the brake drum...what a mess. So, those went to the trash pile and I put the new backing plates on the rear axle. I put new bearings and races (cups and cones) into the old hubs, greased them up real well and tightened them down. Then, I put the new nylon bushings in the leaf springs and mounted the fenders, and put the axle back under the trailer.
I still have a little bit of painting to do here and there. I had to replace the left tail light because it was so corroded that by the time I got this all done, it had decided to quit working. I also replaced the rear center marker lights (for trailers wider than 80 inches).
Soon, I'll have this thing back on the road and I can go pull my boat out of the stinky ole Potomac river where it has accumulated more scum than I want to mess with. Then, I'll be taking it to the James River at Hopewell...in hopes of catching some nice blue catfish! That's the happy ending of the story...going catfishing...which I haven't done for 2 years!
