Check Your Trailer

Two weeks ago during our normal post sesh wipedown I noticed this:

Poor design there. Uprights should be welded on the side of the tube, not top. I am not a fan of tube trailers anyway. Dont like the fact that I can't see what is happening over time like I can with good old "C" channel trailers.

Agreed. I checked the rest of the uprights today, and another had already punched through. The other two were ready to go any time. I had a local shop repair them today, but now I'm worried about the longevity since they just welded a piece of steel where it punched through and welded the upright on top of it. I trailer everywhere so I guess I just need to keep a closer eye on them going forward. Just a friendly reminder to check your gear.

Tony

Do you have pressure treated bunks? An earlier thread told us not to use pressure treated wood on bunks. How old is the trailer? How many times a year do you launch? Does the trailer sit outside all year?

That trailer mfgr will repair that -- there have been threads on here before that went over the problem. There is only one mfgr that built like that.

Crap! Is that a Sportboat trailer? I just checked mine and found the same problem. Mine is a 2005. Thanks for the heads up. I wouldn't have looked if you didn't post that.

Thats how these threads usually go...

I trailer about 100 miles round trip about 4x's a month between Jun and Aug. In the off season, it's about once a month. So, yeah I trailer quite a bit. My trailer sits outside year round. I had read about the trailer manufacturer repairing these trailers on this site and them even denying there was an issue with their trailers to begin with and to be honest, I just didn't want to go through the hassle. For now, I'm just going to keep a close eye on it and if it lasts another 7 years, I'll be happy. I'm just glad all four uprights didn't fail at once while trailering. Now that would have sucked!.. Glad I was able to help out Mark. Let me know how you end up repairing it or if you end up going through the manufacturer.

Tony

BTW, it is a Sportboat 2005.

Sportboat is 2 hours away so I'll probably just end up getting it fixed locally. The thing that stinks for me is I even buff my whole trailer out when the boat is in the slip during summer which means I'm not too thrilled about having a masking line where the new paint begins and ends after welding. I guess I'll have to paint the whole crossmember and bunk support together. So... Welding, sanding and paint just to make a 7 year old garaged trailer stock original again. What a waste. Sportboat sucks! This is just one of three problems I get to fix on this trailer this summer that has been babied it's entire life.

When your doing all that work why not just cut new 2"x2" tubing the same length as the old up rights and weld those in place after grinding the old ones off. Never have to worry about it again.

Known issue with SportBoat Trailers, this was brought up a fews years back. Buddies SB trailer for his Sanger did it multiple times, got the runaround from SB. Eventually they repaired and repainted the trailer only to have it do it again. Crap design for sure!