South Coast Sailboats

Trailer Swaying on the highway:


My SC22 is heavily modified, which added a lot of additional weight to the trailer. I used to tow the package with a Ford extended Econoline 350 Van (a miserable towing vehicle at best). I moved on to a Chevy Pickup and that in and of itself was a big improvement in towing in general, and exentually a Chevy K3500 Dualie, but I still had many towing problems. Common problems (all trailer related) included and were not limited to severly cracked trailer members, multiple broken wheel hubs, smashed wheel bearings and broken bearing races, a snapped axel, multiple flat tires, I even had a steel wheel tear itself from the hub. All kinds of non-boating fun on the side of the road.

As previously mentioned, I also had big time (reads scary) trailer swaying problems. The big and final fix turned out to be that the boat and gear was weighting in at about 3000 lbs. The axel even though it was sitting on a hugh stack of leaf springs(rated much higher), the axel was only rated to 2000 lbs.

After replacing the axel once and shifting it to different positions to try to stop the trailer swaying (with no luck), I finally gave up on the single axel approach. The big and final repair involved dropping the existing running gear and going to a brand new tandem drop axel or dual axel running gear setup. To this setup I added 4 brand new high pressure trailer tires (the higher pressure allows you to carry more weight per wheel). In one repair all problems completely dissapeared. I chose to go with the drop axel because it lowered the trailer for dipping purposes. I also added two large wheel fenders. This was for two reasons. First, it minimized the stuff flying off the wheels. Second, it provides a way to scamper up on to the boat with out a ladder.

 

The cost $1200 complete and installed. Didn't make the boat pretty, didn't make it go any faster, but I haven't spent ten minutes on the side of the road ever since.

 

 

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