Renovating our old trailer...

Renovating the old trailer

March - April 2008

So, as previously announced, a new rusty old heap of a trailer arrived on Mark's driveway, no doubt to the chagrin of the neighbors, as we do our best to drive property values down yet further in our already depressed market (just wait till we express an interest in renovating old cars or refrigerators...).

Yes, it is parked on the lawn at the front of the house. Yes, we can now be accused of being hillbillies, though the bit of grass it sits on is designated for a bit of driveway widening whenever Mark can actually find a contractor who's interested in a small job.

(2) Next stage is really boring. Wire-wheel all loose rust and metal down as far as possible. Just patiently work around each section of the trailer until done to your standard (ours is low). We'll never get back to flat metal - it'll always be pitted so our eventual hammer finish paint will 'complement' this rustic look. Once all the loose rust is off, use a rust treatment before priming.

(3) Once the rust is off and treated (we used brush-on Naval Gel mostly but anything will work really), the priming can start. We're just using a standard automobile primer in a spray can. First part to get the treatment is the winch. We're doing all this using simple spray cans of paint (Rustoleum in our case) and no elaborate professional spray rigs - we're not going for perfection here; just a decent finish that'll last a while.

(4) Below priming starts on the body of the trailer following rust treatment. Even with taking off all the loose stuff, the surface remains pretty pitted as you can see if you look closely but that's OK; we're not aiming for perfection - just functionality without rust coming through later. It is 1/8" steel after all so there's plenty of solid American build and workmanship here. Ah, makes you pine for the good old days before everything was imported...

(6) So, with everything primed, the color of the trailer will be the same color as the other one - good old dark silver and black to maximize economies of scale (ie. we could use up the remains of a couple of old cans, and any leftover part used cans can be used on either trailer). Note the grass is getting a bit sprayed but Mark figures it'll grow back. Mark's wife, however, isn't saying anything per se but is using the look. Married guys will know what I mean - you single guys will find out in due course. We have to work fast though as the sprinklers need to go on again soon as it's starting to get hotter here by the day. Anyway, it's sort of an Oakland Raiders tribute, probably the only tribute they'll get this year - perhaps they'll sponsor the boats if we ask Big Al nicely...

We cleaned up the better of the original tires so it can serve as a spare. That's the one at the front of the picture. Some old aluminum brush on paint that Mark had hanging around his garage actually comes to a color pretty close to the new galvanized wheels to it won't look out of place. Yay. Aesthetics.

(7) So now it's a matter of reassembly and bringing the wiring and lights up to modern spec (for the wiring, for once, we were smart enough to drill a couple of holes in advance so the wiring can run inside as much as possible. Just to prove actual progress was made, here's the trailer, off the grass (which is needed as we're in the high 70's now and no sprinkers = dead grass pretty quickly), standing on its very own wheels with almost everything done. Even mowed the lawn a bit to remove a bit of the evidence of it being used as a spray booth - give it a week or two - you'll never know.

(8) Next up is running the wiring and fitting the lights themselves. This is a pretty simple 4-wire arrangement and we're mounting the side-lights on the body of the trailer rather than the tongue as this makes for far simpler fitting as the wiring is exposed. After fitting everything, Mark decided to spray the wires that were visible with trailer color to reduce the visual impact. Anyway, against all odds, the lights worked first time, but this may be because Mark didn't use the dodgy Chinese connectors that came with the kit. Now that's done, it's on to getting it registered sometime but this will probably be at our usual pace. Voilà, lights on to prove it.

There's a good chance the DMV may object to the lighting arrangement (it's actually the same as the original) but the rules are a bit vague for small trailers so it'll depend on the guy who does the registration. Mind you, they'll probably object to the complete lack of proper paperwork too, and they'll assume we're criminals - mind you, thinking about it, that's what happens every time we set foot in there. Possible future excitement. We shall see.

(11) And onto the boards to support the boat. Made up out of odds and ends with us getting lucky on some metal for the uprights from Orchard Supply Hardware that was just about the right length. Mark used his trusty angle grinder to take the top corners off to allow the boards to pivot. The boards are just spare fencing sprayed lightly with several leftover cans of paint for a bit more water resistance. The pivots were made out of some rectangular metal, cut to length and painted, using a section of Sears garage door opener track. The latter was mounted to the board using carriage bolts to avoid anything sticking into the boat; everything else is just stuff from the hardware store. No stainless steel nautical stuff at ten times the price for us - if it rusts out, we'll buy new bits. While what we're doing isn't hugely flexible (but it is strong enough for a Mirror), we have an advantage in we know roughly where things need to be spaced and what sizes (from the other trailer) bits need to be. Below, the rough fitted support boards. Note the second from the bottom hole; once we have the Mirror positioned, we'll drill more holes, and put in bolts to hold the boards in a permanent position and to stiffen the arrangement.

(13) Amazingly the DMV issued the plates so we are officially on the road legally! Here the trailers meet and 36332 is swapped to the new one. A proud moment for sure.

We moved the Mirror over and positioned it as we wanted it then drilled holes to add new bolts to maintain the board position. The Mirror fits the trailer really well so we're very pleased.

Below Shawn starts to test how solid the trailer is by wire-wheeling off some of the worst of the surface rust using a hardy $12 Harbor Freight corded drill that was bought as we don't care if we burn it out. Oddly enough, it handled the last trailer pretty well and shows no signs of dying yet. There's lots of rust, some of it flaking off in huge chunks, but the original steel was 1/8" and the loss of metal doesn't seem substantial enough to worry us in any way. All the welds are solid and stress testing it (OK, kicking it really hard and jumping on it) made us confident it'll be fine.

Note our plan is to work on it in the street outside Mark's house so that'll please the neighbors even more.

(1) We started by removing the parts that needed to go (like lights etc) and tossing them, and removing any parts not welded down for refinishing. Sounds easy but presented quite a few challenges as many of the bolts were rusted solid and needed cutting/chiselling off. We also knocked off the obvious loose surface rust.

Check out the flared fenders. You don't see that nowadays.

(5) Mark also pulled off the bearing covers and found the old grease in there was a bit sticky to say the least. As a result they got cleaned out and repacked with new grease that'll do the job much better. The wheels, while much improved, still feel a bit stiffer to move than we'd like but this problem should resolve itself as the new grease works its way into the bearings.

We also bought new galvanized hubs and tires from West Marine (Harbor Freight were no good this time as they don't carry a 5 bolt pattern meaning we had to spend an extra $10 per wheel). The existing ones can, most kindly, be described as 'well aged' though 'death trap' is probably a more accurate term. Anyway, the two new wheels will look great and the old ones will be cleaned up a bit and serve as spares. Harbor Freight did come through for us on everything else though so we have spiffy new submersible lights, new wiring harness, new safety chains, new trailer jack, and all the other bits we might need so we'll forgive them for not having the wheels just this once. Anyway, below, the painted trailer with all the bits ready to be put back on to make it DMV ready. .

(9) Now we need to figure out how to put some support boards on the trailer. We think we can do it with mostly odds and ends scrounged up from around our garages along with a few creative purchases from the local hardware store. Keep tuned to see how that works out. Anyway, we'll figure it out.

As you may have noticed, there are some big bits of steel and fiberglass that got removed and we have no use for. The steel mast support was put out for the garbage company to recyle but they couldn't be bothered to get out of their truck to pick it up. It's either a trip to the local dump or a clandestine night visit to the nearest Safeway dumpster now. Either way, Shawn is is charge of getting rid of the bits we don't need. Mark doesn't intend to ask...

(10) The trailer actually nears completion! On goes the spare tire mount, just in case, using the best of the old wheels. After a lick of paint the hub looks OK and almost matches the new galvanized ones. Less than $10 for the mount so well worth the expense.

The final stage is to put some cheap outdoor carpet on the boards. Unfortunately the cheapest stuff is a green astroturf knock-off. Perhaps we'll grow to love it. Wonder if you can spray paint it another color. Hmm, shall we try...

(12) So on goes the cheap green outdoor carpet, though from the look of the quality, we're not sure where outdoors it might be applicable. Maybe we should think of this stage as our homage to a simpler lifestyle - a pastoral patch of green outside one's double-wide. Perhaps a brief existentialist moment for the website, or perhaps a simple tribute to Kermit. Anyway, suggestions on how we rationalize it will clearly be needed.

So, color choice aside, this is pretty easy to do, especially if you have an electric stapler (Mark does - usual store...). Basically cut to size, wrap and tuck till it looks neat. Only staple underneath - we would imagine most people would have got that bit but just in case so we avoid someone scratching up their boat. As an extra, by sheer chance, Mark's wife was throwing out a piece of thin plastic cushion wrap - perfect for an underlay - so Mark grabbed it, cut it to size and glued it to the boards for a little extra padding. Not a bad idea for once. Anyway, fit the boards back on and that's it. Job done! Now back to boat building.

Now that the original trailer is back at Mark's house, it'll get a few touchups, the bar at the the back will be shortened as we both kept tripping over it, and a few minor maintenance items.

Now it's fully loaded, we intend to double up the board support struts before its first road trip though to err on the safe side. Easy enough to do, so why not, but then again we never got round to it.

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"flotation chambers are a good thing..."