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Hi. I just got a little Jon Boat that's really great. But the trailer
looks like it came out of a junkyard. So I'm replacing a lot of parts
on it.
It has the two, carpeted wooden slats on it. However, the brackets that
hold them onto the trailer are rusted off completely. I initially
thought of just replacing these brackets. But then I ran across these
http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs...1/641/11210/17
"glide slicks". They seem cheap, and would be much easier to replace
than to try and get the remainder of these rusted brackets off. Is the
only purpose of those wooden slats the same as these slicks? Or are
they better at holding the boat onto the trailer? Like I said, it's a
really small, light boat. All aluminum. So it doesn't need much,
trailer wise. But there's not much holding it onto the trailer. It just
sits on a couple of rollers.
Which brings me to my second question: Do I even need rollers for this
small boat? I need to replace the ones that are on there. But then I
see a lot of small trailers don't even have them. So should I just do
away with them?
Thanks,
Sam
Rollers are not such a good idea for aluminum boats. The weight of the
boat's resting on smaller points (the rollers) than if you simply had the
wooden bunks, so it's possible for the rollers to create indentations. Not
huge ones, probably, but still....
Even if you add those plastic glides, you still need to mount them to wood,
and the wood needs brackets. So, unless I'm not understanding your
situation, the glides are unrelated to your need to replace the brackets. As
for the glides themselves, a friend of mine tried them with his jon boat and
found that the boat shifted around on the trailer way too much during
travel, and that even with all the proper tie-downs. I'd stick with carpet.