DIY Trailer Resto

[85RiverRAT]

In true budget fashion we tore into the trailer over the Holiday break. The idea is the next project would be blowing the big coin for a new interior and a kickin' stereo. In an attempt to save some money, the trailer just needed a mild touch-up, and I think that was accomplished.

Straight to the to particulars.

Original 1995 Hoss Trailer, double axle, it carries our 1995 240 Hallett.

Prior to us owning it we have no IDEA on the history. We picked it up 5 years old.
We dunked twice in Newport Dunes CA, and the salt water FRIED the brakes. Coming down the 5 FWY, there was a trail of blue smoke billowing from the tires. The grease seals let go, and the pads were locked out on the drums.

The brakes had to be rebuilt, and the rock chips were oozing rust, so we hit it with a coat of White Rustoleum. This was at least 6-7 years ago. NEVER AGAIN in Salt Water.
Other than the two salt water dunks, the rest of the aging is due mostly to road wear and tear between SoCal, Lake Mead, Lake Powell, and now Havasu. Lots of Road Rash.

On another occasion we over loaded the axles traveling to Lake Powell, and had to have new ones installed. The axle tubes were bent at the conclusion of our house boat trip.
Over the years, nothing had been done otherwise, except seasonal maintenance and fresh tires, replaced bad bulbs every now and then. We would also touch up the Rustoleum Gloss White when it needed it. Fast forward to 2014/2015 this trailer is 20 years old and really in a world of hurt. Lights don't work, rust, chips, bunks are rotted, hardware rusted, etc. etc.

Prior Projects that got the ball rolling:

Chrome guide posts.

Winter 2012, I made these Chrome guide posts with bunks on them. We zaws-all'ed the old ones off, and installed these removable guides. Great upgrade because the originals were rubber guides, and if you were a little off loading the boat you would get rubber streaks along the sides. The carpet is much better. A Fulton Jack also replaced on the front end.



New Bunks.

On our last trip out in 2014, we had SEAN THE BUNK GUY, replace our trailer bunks. He met us at the ramp in the morning, and by 5:00pm that evening he met us back there with fresh bunks. New douglas fir, bunk carpet, and stainless double nutted hardware. He replaced the main bunks, and both sets of bow stops.




Project Time:
The game plan was to get some fresh paint on it, maybe a new color. Rewire, and install new LED lights, etc. Brakes are in good order, and it already had fresh tires.
We rented a slip for the week at the marina, and dropped of the boat. This free'd up the trailer, and we didn't need to find someone or someway to lift it off.
Then in a true "Father and Sons" fashion we spent 5 days thrashing on this trailer and it came out pretty good. I have a ton of photos, so I'll load them in batches to chronicle this undertaking.


BEFORE PICTURE:

 

[85RiverRAT]

Tear Down (December 27, 2014)

We hauled all of the tools and supplies from home. Jacks, hand tools, breaker bars, everything.

Nothing much to describe here. Plastic to protect the floor, and get to wrenching. This was Day 1, after tear down Drinks, Advil, and a Hot Shower. :thumbup:

 

[ka0tyk]

subbing... love these threads. i gotta strip and repaint mine.

 

[Rickybobby]

Sweet rebuild, I did a similar thing on my trailer... was trying to save some cash and only "do a little bit" but it might have been only slightly more to build new:bash::bash:

Hard to believe there is "a guy" who just does bunk replacement.... almost to simple to work !!!! but I like it.... very cool thanks for sharing.

rb

 

[Warlock1]

Subbed

 

[Advantage 1]

These threads are cool. I have zero skill at doing these jobs as so many of you do. Keep this pics coming :thumbup:

 

[Ibeplumbing]

I need to do this so bad, I need to get the boat off the trailer though. And I don't trust it moored in pleasant for a week or so.

 

[ka0tyk]

I need to do this so bad, I need to get the boat off the trailer though. And I don't trust it moored in pleasant for a week or so.

boats can be safetly removed from trailers with just some 2x4's cut up and a bottle jack (floor jacks move as you jack them up...) its really pretty easy to do.

 

[Ibeplumbing]

My bigger issue is I don't have the room you do. I know you can but I have a hard time trusting myself doing it. I've got a 25ft cat

 

[Ibeplumbing]

Once you jack it up, how do you pull the trailer out without raising and lowering the jacks and 2x4's over and over?

 

[85RiverRAT]

Sanding and Paint Prep (December 28, 2014)

Paint prep was done with a Orbital Sander, Palm Sander, Blocks, and on the really rough stuff a grinder with a heavy sanding disk.

The many coats of Rustoleum was pretty much chalk, and a lot of what was coming off was chalked up Rustoleum. There were sections were the original paint work was still in good shape. The bunk supports and cross members had the most rust and those areas were touched up with a grinder and then with the orbital.

We use mostly 150 grit on everything to knock down the rough spots and get everything mostly flat. If going for a better finish we would have needed to be more aggressive and have finished with a finer grit.

We made sure to sand down to metal where the surface rust had popped through.

At the end of the day we made quite the mess. The whole trailer was then dusted off, and then wiped down with Paint Thinner and Blue Shop Towels.

 

[85RiverRAT]

Once you jack it up, how do you pull the trailer out without raising and lowering the jacks and 2x4's over and over?

Likely the only way that it can be done. Move the trailer forward and then readjust the jacks for each cross member, until the trailer is clear.

Decades ago, Competitive trailer had our Eliminator lifted off and put into a rack, when that trailer was being painted.

 

[85RiverRAT]

Paint Prep and Primer (December 28, 2014)

The second half of the day, was cleaning up the garage, and changing out the plastic on the floor. We also had to wipe down and do a quick detail on the Ultra in the next bay. There was sanding dust pretty much every where.

Ready for Primer. We wiped down the trailer once more with Paint Thinner and Blue Shop towels to get the last of the dust, and to degrease the metal.

We used Zinsser Cover Stain Oil-Based Interior/Exterior Primer.


This is really the meat of the DIY Part. No rattle cans, or exotic paint materials. 4" Ultra Fine Foam rollers and paint brushes. One solid coat was rolled on, top to bottom, front to back. The really rough spots received two coats of primer. After this was done we left it to dry over night.

 

[SoCalDave]

"We also had to wipe down and do a quick detail on the Ultra in the next bay. There was sanding dust pretty much every where."

I was going to say that I bet all that sanding made a mess of the Ultra sitting there uncovered.
Why didn't you put up a plastic curtain from floor to ceiling? Would have made the clean-up much easier.

Cool thread bty... my 95 Hallett trailer needs the same loving.

Dave

 

[85RiverRAT]

Paint Day (December 29, 2014)

Splash of color.

In trying to figure out what paint to use, we looked at all sorts. House of Kolor, PPG, Rustoleum Automotive, Duplicolor, Eastwood, Behr, etc.

The automotive paints are simply that, 'automotive paints', you need to base coat, clear coat, with a good quality primer. Being on a budget we couldn't realistically spray an automotive finish in the garage. If we wanted to do that, it would have been sourced out in the first place. There are not a lot of single stage purples that we could readily find that would have looked presentable with a rolled on finish.

Rustoleum Automotive did have an industrial/fleet grade paint, but their base white was not tintable. You can't custom tint this paint according to the Tech Help Line.

We ended up landing on Behr Premium Plus Exterior High Gloss Enamel and had it custom tinted at Home Depot. http://www.behr.com/consumer/products/interior-paint-and-primer/behr-premium-plus-hi-gloss-enamel

We color matched between the purple on the Hallett and the purple on the Extreme trailer carrying the Ultra in the next bay, we used a Pantone chip card to pick the color.

Two coats were applied, again with the 4" ultra fine rollers, the outer rails were done in as smooth as a stroke as possible to let it lay flat. The lighting was bad all week long. The shop lights are not great and it was over cast out side. The color really pops more than these photos are showing.

The paint did flatten out some. It is not 'baby bottom smooth' like a powder coated trailer would be, or a sprayed trailer would be, but it makes the grade either way. Best way to describe the end result, would be a smooth-ish truck bed liner, it has a crinkle-coat appearance. The best part, NO RUST, at least on the outside.

FIRST COAT



SECOND COAT

 

[85RiverRAT]

Wiring and Lights (December 30, 2014)

The paint was left to dry over night and the next morning we tackled the wiring and lights.

All the lights, markers, reflectors, and rubber gaskets, were purchased from etrailer.com. http://www.etrailer.com/

This site is great. Installation videos, wiring diagrams, customer service, etc.

We were able to buy all new LED lights, for all the tail lights, side lights, clearance lights and the black gaskets for them.

Other parts were quick splice connectors, die electric grease, lots of new wire, electric tape, etc.

All the old connectors were split up, and grounds cut off. The new wire was attached at the rear of the trailer to the old wires. From the front of the trailer, at the tongue, the new wires were pulled forward, using the old wires to pull the new ones. Rather than grounding the circuit at each light a common ground wire was pulled to the front of the trailer.

At each light a quick connect was used to splice each light. Die electric grease was added to each connector before closing the blade. Each splice was wrapped in electric tape for good measure.

After a quick check, everything was tucked into the frame rails and the gaskets and lights were popped into place.




Pulling the new wire.



TA-DA. HOW BOUT DEM APPLES!!

 

[85RiverRAT]

ALL DONE! (December 30, 2014)

In the same day as the lights,we reassembled the trailer. Bunks, fenders, winch, jack, tires, safety chains, etc.

We were not planning to pick up the boat that afternoon, but boy were we glad we did. What a storm that hit New Years Eve. The poor Hallett would have been sitting in the slip just getting dumped on, and we would have to had gone down to the marina and try to retrieve it in a snow storm. We had a much more relaxing morning watching the snow fall.

All went well we got it back to the house on the 30th and the trailer turned out pretty nice.



FINISHED!!



Thanks for following!

 

[Advantage 1]

Nicely done! That turned out great :thumbup:

 

[Lunatic Fringe]

Great write-up and a great job on the trailer. It's interesting seeing DIY projects like this.

 

[Music to my Ears]

What a great DIY thread. Thank you!

 

[RiverDave]

Awesome DIY thread! I'd like to see how that finish turned out in person.

 

[HOOTER SLED-]

Cool project..:thumbup: But did you really use a water based enamel on that? :yikes

 

[85RiverRAT]

Cool project..:thumbup: But did you really use a water based enamel on that? :yikes

Yes, the Behr is a Water Born enamel, as far as we can tell. The Zinsser was oil based primer, for maximum adhesion.

The water base was really so that we could easily roll the paint on. It was also one of the only hi-gloss enamels we could readily find that was tintable to a custom purple color.

The color fastness and longevity of the paint will be something we have to wait and see if it lasts. But we have the house in Havasu now so really we are only towing between the house and the marina. It is stored in doors, and long road trips aren't in our travel plans much any more. Just dunking it at the ramp shouldn't break down the finish to bad. We just want it hold out for a few more years maybe five, and then we will get after it again with some automotive paint or powdercoating.

Thinking back we might have used a heavier roller nap, to apply more paint so that it could level itself some more, and bring out more of the Gloss in the paint. Still looks a semi-gloss as is. Some of the spots we hit with the brush, layed down more, with more gloss where the paint was thicker.

 

[rrrr]

It looks really nice but I'm not a fan of those insulation displacement connectors (now everyone knows the proper name for them.).

But I doubt they will cause trouble for you in the dry climate of Havasu.

View attachment 386234

 

[HOOTER SLED-]

Yes, the Behr is a Water Born enamel, as far as we can tell. The Zinsser was oil based primer, for maximum adhesion.

The water base was really so that we could easily roll the paint on. It was also one of the only hi-gloss enamels we could readily find that was tintable to a custom purple color.

The color fastness and longevity of the paint will be something we have to wait and see if it lasts. But we have the house in Havasu now so really we are only towing between the house and the marina. It is stored in doors, and long road trips aren't in our travel plans much any more. Just dunking it at the ramp shouldn't break down the finish to bad. We just want it hold out for a few more years maybe five, and then we will get after it again with some automotive paint or powdercoating.

Thinking back we might have used a heavier roller nap, to apply more paint so that it could level itself some more, and bring out more of the Gloss in the paint. Still looks a semi-gloss as is. Some of the spots we hit with the brush, layed down more, with more gloss where the paint was thicker.

Yea...the problem with the tintable stuff is that purple was probably not a more common color. I would have used the Rustoleum oil based.....you know, like the kind most peeps use on wrought iron fencing. but I'm sure the color selection is not broad. You should have just ended up spraying it. Shit, as cheesy as it sounds, you probably could have used a house sprayer and liked the way it layed down better than the rollers. I'm not really trying to knock your job, I'm just saying, you spent all that time and did a good job prepping it. Painting was the easy part. Shit, maybe even rattle can. You couldn't have been that far off in price to just take it somewhere to paint after YOU did all the prep to save money. Shit, I think it was One-a-Day who just got his stripped and powder coated for what I thought was pretty cheap.

 

[rrrr]

FINISHED!!

View attachment 386253

The trailer looks very nice. Congrats to you ands the crew.