Well, it's spring and now that the ice has gone out, it's time to get the boats ready. And so the Grouse prepares again to do battle with his perennial foe: The boat trailer.

I did a recon assessment on my small fishing boat's trailer last night and this year it's worse than usual: Time to overhaul the bearings.

It freaking can't be! I just did that dirty, miserable job just a year or so ago, I swear it. Oh, but how time flies when you're having fun. I checked the maintenance log and it's been 5 years and (gulp!) and over 3000 miles on the trailer. Dammit. So here we go, time to get greasy and pay the price for the joys of boat ownership.

Also on the to-do list is to install new brake lights / turn signals. I'm going with the LED units this time and I've custom fabricated some 16 ga steel backing plates so rocks kicked up by the tires won't blast the lights off any more. I'm slow, but I'm learning.

And, of course, with the kind of mileage I put on the trailer in the last few years (3 trips to Canada at 1000 miles round trip + just normal fishing) of course the tires are all bald as billiard balls. That's not a DIY project, luckily the local garage will change those out for just the cost of the tires, but that's 3X $40 each + VAT. What a racket.

Anyone else grappling with the joys of boat and trailer maintenance this spring?

Am I some kind of sadist for doing bearings myself?

I guess that's part of the joy of owning a boat. You're never without something to do.

Grouse

3000 miles and 5 years on one set or pair of bearings.

Sadist, definately not. Economist definately maybe.

How do you find the time.

__________________
Tight Lines. :)

Yeah, strictly speaking I've let them go a bit long. Usually I go 3-4 years depending on the number of trips to Canada, but ya know. . .

Here's the thing, though. Can you guys get those things called Bearing Buddies over there? It's a cylinder that goes in place of the bearing dust cover. These things have a grease zerk on the outside and then inside they have this spring loaded mechanism like a mini grease gun. So you pump them full of grease every month or so and they slowly inject the grease into the bearing as they rotate.

Bearing Buddies are the best thing since sliced bread, if you don't have them, get them. I'd say they easily double the life of bearings, maybe more.

Only downside is you blow a bit of grease out the back seal by the axle, so after a few years you have to degrease the inside of your tire rims. Small price to pay.

Don, in case you want to reevaluate if I'm a sadist, I should mention at this point that I have 3 boats. Yeah. So that'd be 3 trailers too. Or 6 tires. Or 12 bearings to redo. Dammit. Thanks for bringing it up.

Luckily the drift boat's trailer was new last year, so that'll be fine for a few years. Big boat will need bearings this year too.

Grouse

This why I switched to sit on top kayaks to fish from. All of the fun, none of the maintenance.

I thoroughly enjoyed your note, Grouse. I used to own a small powerboat, and at the time my children were small. Whatever price I paid in skint knuckles and aggravation was more than compensated for by the educational experience for my children. It vastly improved their vocabularies. Perhaps I should use the word expanded rather than improved.

Grant, I believe everyone knows that "BOAT" is not a word, but rather an acronym for "Bust Out Another Thousand".

Like I always say, as long as you own a boat, you'll never be without something to do. Never.

But with that said, for me the PITA factor of the maintenance and repairs is overcome with one good day. Or in the case of my big boat that's mainly used just for pleasure cruises, on cruise on a beautiful summer evening. I like nothing better than to fix a few cocktails and have a nice 20 mile cruise. Stop for some dinner along the way. Cool wind, beautiful sunset, doesn't get any better. Boat ownership justified for another year.

OK, now I gotta go and pressure wash the birdsh!t off of my big boat. I just got it out of winter storage. Apparently a flock of pigeons was also being stored for the winter in the rack above my boat.

Grouse