Trailer Guides

I would be careful of running the hard pipe up too far. I asked the question when I bought my trailer, and they said if the metal parts are too tall you can tip the trailer on its side a bit underwater. Then you have to let everything settle before pulling out. That said, my boat is a little 220 so maybe you won’t have that issue with a heavier trailer.

I'm not sure that is going to be a problem with adding less than 200lbs to a 2300lbs trailer. But something to watch for.

Out here on the coast, the guides are moving around thursday, friday, saturday and sunday as well. We typically go out during the week to avoid the crowds and they are there all the time. Well at least one or another. There is a few that will jump in and help if they need to and are just good folks. Most are better than everybody else and are pretty snooty.

We have been offered the use of a few privately owned slips and the Embarcadero is $30 a night with full hook ups and use of the facilities. We plan on going over and staying the weekends. I can haul on friday mornings or saturday mornings but not at all on sundays on the small state highways. So trusdays or fridays over and home on mondays. Same with driving through PDX out to the Columbia.

So when checking on metal close to me, I found it's going to be less of a hassle to have them weld it up. So with the metal posts and the pvc and all of the hardware, I'm all in for about $175. I will run this for this season and if everything works out good, I will take it all apart and have it hot galvanized and then I'll paint it. I still need to get something fabricated to hold the guides to the frame when traveling. I will deal with that later as I think I'm going to do a bolt on mount. I've seen frames crack for aftermarket welds and it wasn't pretty.

Looks good.

So to finish up, I got the holder brackets finished. I didn't want to weld to the frame and so I built a bolt on bracket to hold the guides when in transport. They will function as needed although the look the best at no less than 15' away. But all they cost was $1.34 for bolts and about $10 in welding wire.

I still need to have the guides themselves dipped or maybe powder coated. I can always sandblast them and deal with that this winter.

Nice job. As long as they're strong enough they really do help. Especially in a current. I've loaded my 290DA on my trailer three times in the past month and they've been extremely helpful. They have no problem "correcting" my steering that's a little more difficult to keep true with a single engine. Mine just stay on. I find they help when I'm estimating the distance while backing up. It's an easy reference point. They aren't in the way at all and only stick out the diameter of the pipe. It's tight against the rail.

It looks good!

HawkX66 said:

Nice job. As long as they're strong enough they really do help. Especially in a current. I've loaded my 290DA on my trailer three times in the past month and they've been extremely helpful. They have no problem "correcting" my steering that's a little more difficult to keep true with a single engine. Mine just stay on. I find they help when I'm estimating the distance while backing up. It's an easy reference point. They aren't in the way at all and only stick out the diameter of the pipe. It's tight against the rail.

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With my beam at 10'6" they would put me over the limit on most Oregon roads for width. I want to be sure I can travel the state roads and not be stuck to interstate which is about 30 miles from me. And I don't need a pilot car on some of the coastal roads this way. The trailer is right at 8'6" and legal on it's own but the 300DA is that much wider.

The 2.5" square is 1/8" thick and the poles are 1 3/4" OD and almost 1/4" thick. For the extra $40 I let the shop weld them with their "good" welder. I'm limited to the little 110v welder. It's a great "farm" welder where the welds are strong but they tend to be like your date from the bar after drinking all night and it's 2:15am.

Now to get the tow rig out of the shop, again, and finish up the ground wire on the starboard side of the trailer. And now I just found the tires are seperating from the casing. The boss went balistic when I told her we now need 7 new tires. I tried explaining that those Carlisle Trail HD's don't last forever. And the fact they are over 10 years old, they are way past their prime.