trailer tie down hooks
Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 10:02 am
Boblee:
thanks for reminding me. I should double check the tires.
We do sometimes haul our boat for several hundred miles. Up to Lake Champlain, northern Maine, New Jersey, etc. "rough roads" is a relative term. New England weather is tough on roads. Freeze, thaw, freeze, thaw. When we went to Rangeley lake with our Potter 2 years ago we had to drive over 5 miles on a road that had been stripped of the asphalt (in the process of repaving) and was just rutted dirt. That's not typical, but road maintenance isn't what it used to be around here. lots and lots of nasty potholes. real axle crunchers. I live on a numbered state road and find hubcaps in my front yard all the time....
I'm thinking as much as rough roads matter, so does the ability to handle high loads in hot conditions. Driving several hours on asphalt in 80, 90 or even 100F heat (yes it was 104 in suburban Boston Tue of last week) is real tough on tires. Getting stuck in traffic in such heat on black asphalt roads is hull too. Oh yeah and it's also tough on the tires
Oskar:
I wish I'd even gotten a start. Boat is in a different shop now to have the throttle cable properly installed. Got the factory installed ETec 50. Started in gear with the throttle in neutral and wouldn't go into reverse. Turns out the throttle cable was installed incorrectly. Just as well because the pre-delivery inspection Evinrude requires of its engine dealers to validate the warranty was never done, so that is getting done too.
Someday this boat may actually see something other than rainwater. It was 4 weeks late getting delivered and has been sitting around for 4 weeks now while the many, many defects get sorted out under warranty.
Now to what I was really writing about....
During all this down time I've worked on the boat a little while waiting until the marine service places could get to working on it. One neat little thing I did was to remove a couple of bolts at the back of the aluminum I beams on both sides where they attach to the rear most cross member. Then I replaced them with stainless steel eye bolts of the same size, with washers underneath them so that the eye bolt would would still hold the I beam down properly to the cross member.
Initially I removed the outer most bolts and put the eye bolts there, but then when I went to mount the license plate the gunnel tie down strap was chafing against it. Thought about moving the plastic board that the license screws onto, but the grounding wire from the tail light was so short that I couldn't move it at all.
So I undid all the bolts again, and then moved the eye bolts to where the innermost bolts at the very back of the eye beam bolt onto the rearmost cross member. Now the gunnel tie down strap doesn't touch anything and can be tightened sufficiently to keep the boat from sliding around any if for some reason you have to jam on the breaks. The strap fits nicely behind the rear SS cleats and we cut some rubber pond liner and slid it over the strap so that it sits between the strap and the boat to prevent the strap from chafing the hull.
All this came in handy as I've had to tow the Albatross (our current nickname for the thing) to marine service places twice now. Once to the nearby one to get the torsion bars and lights fixed, and then, when it was road worthy, a 2nd time to the only authorized Evinrude service center that had the time to look at the boat before sailing season ended....
Some day this thing might actually sail. Then what will you all do without me here to make you all feel good about how lucky you are to actually be sailing
dr.beer
thanks for reminding me. I should double check the tires.
We do sometimes haul our boat for several hundred miles. Up to Lake Champlain, northern Maine, New Jersey, etc. "rough roads" is a relative term. New England weather is tough on roads. Freeze, thaw, freeze, thaw. When we went to Rangeley lake with our Potter 2 years ago we had to drive over 5 miles on a road that had been stripped of the asphalt (in the process of repaving) and was just rutted dirt. That's not typical, but road maintenance isn't what it used to be around here. lots and lots of nasty potholes. real axle crunchers. I live on a numbered state road and find hubcaps in my front yard all the time....
I'm thinking as much as rough roads matter, so does the ability to handle high loads in hot conditions. Driving several hours on asphalt in 80, 90 or even 100F heat (yes it was 104 in suburban Boston Tue of last week) is real tough on tires. Getting stuck in traffic in such heat on black asphalt roads is hull too. Oh yeah and it's also tough on the tires
Oskar:
I wish I'd even gotten a start. Boat is in a different shop now to have the throttle cable properly installed. Got the factory installed ETec 50. Started in gear with the throttle in neutral and wouldn't go into reverse. Turns out the throttle cable was installed incorrectly. Just as well because the pre-delivery inspection Evinrude requires of its engine dealers to validate the warranty was never done, so that is getting done too.
Someday this boat may actually see something other than rainwater. It was 4 weeks late getting delivered and has been sitting around for 4 weeks now while the many, many defects get sorted out under warranty.
Now to what I was really writing about....
During all this down time I've worked on the boat a little while waiting until the marine service places could get to working on it. One neat little thing I did was to remove a couple of bolts at the back of the aluminum I beams on both sides where they attach to the rear most cross member. Then I replaced them with stainless steel eye bolts of the same size, with washers underneath them so that the eye bolt would would still hold the I beam down properly to the cross member.
Initially I removed the outer most bolts and put the eye bolts there, but then when I went to mount the license plate the gunnel tie down strap was chafing against it. Thought about moving the plastic board that the license screws onto, but the grounding wire from the tail light was so short that I couldn't move it at all.
So I undid all the bolts again, and then moved the eye bolts to where the innermost bolts at the very back of the eye beam bolt onto the rearmost cross member. Now the gunnel tie down strap doesn't touch anything and can be tightened sufficiently to keep the boat from sliding around any if for some reason you have to jam on the breaks. The strap fits nicely behind the rear SS cleats and we cut some rubber pond liner and slid it over the strap so that it sits between the strap and the boat to prevent the strap from chafing the hull.
All this came in handy as I've had to tow the Albatross (our current nickname for the thing) to marine service places twice now. Once to the nearby one to get the torsion bars and lights fixed, and then, when it was road worthy, a 2nd time to the only authorized Evinrude service center that had the time to look at the boat before sailing season ended....
Some day this thing might actually sail. Then what will you all do without me here to make you all feel good about how lucky you are to actually be sailing
dr.beer