Preping Your Trailer

Soon, the winds will be howling and the snow will be flying.  Daytime temps will be in the 20’s.  You’ll have your gear bag packed, your helmet polished, your sled prepped and the oil changed in your tow vehicle.  So are you ready to head north? Nope. You’ve forgotten one of the most important pieces of the sledding experience. Your trailer.

Now, is the best time of the year to get your trailer ready.  While the grass is soft and the air is still fairly warm. Budget yourself two hours on a Saturday and you will insure a season of worry free travel.

Let’s get started.  Take your sleds off the trailer.  It’ll make things much easier as you ‘ll have to lift the axles later. Walk around the trailer and look for cracks or separations wherever there is a welded joint.  Lay on the ground and look underneath the unit.  Look for the same cracks or breaks.  If there are any signs of a weak joint, check your yellow pages for someone that does welding and get it repaired.  If all is well, move to what is probably the most important part on the trailer, the tires.  Tires don’t wear out from use on the highway. They wear out from sitting in the sun for nine months out of the year. Ultra-violet rays break down rubber in a merciless way.  They cause cracks and fissures in the sidewalls that weaken and threaten the integrity of the tire.  If your tires have a lot of wide cracks and separations, don’t hesitate, replace them.  When traveling down the highway at 70 mph, your trailer tires can build up a lot of heat and this combined with weak sidewalls are a recipe for disaster.

Using the formula C1 x C2 = V1 x V2, your trailer tires rotate two to two and one half times for every time your truck tires rotate.  Not to mention the weight to surface area ratio on your trailer & sleds on two 8.5 inch tires vs. your truck on four 16 inch tires.

If you need to replace your tires, check with your tire dealer to see the cost of a combo package of new tire and rim. You’ll be surprised. Usually you’ll be able to by the combo for less than $10 more than the tire alone. This way everything is new and you’ll have two spares.

When you replace the tires, make sure you get the proper rated tire.  A load C rated tire is the highest rating.  They will handle 920 lbs. each. If you replace the rims as well, make sure you get the correct number of lugs. 4 vs. 5.

When you put your new meats on your trailer, do one more very important thing.  Put a small amount of an anti-seize compound on the lugs.  On a cold January Friday night, on the side of I-75, with the traffic whizzing by as you’re laying on the ground, you’ll be so glad you put on the anti- seize.

With your tires installed, wiggle them from side to side to see if there is any slop in the wheel bearings.  If there is, change them.  If you’re not comfortable, have a garage do it.  If you don’t have them already, install bearing buddies.  These spring loaded grease cups keep a constant feed of grease to your bearings. Provided you remember to give them a couple shots from your grease gun before a trip.

The next item to check is probably the most frustrating to anyone who has ever owned a trailer.  The lighting system.  See, I can see your face scrunching up in agony as you recall that time you were headed north and out in the middle of nowhere, you realized that you had no lights on your rig.  You pull over to the side of the highway and as you wiggle on the connection between your truck and trailer, you invoke the names of all the saints you can remember, hoping to find the one that is the patron saint of loss of electrical current.  As you wiggle and wiggle the connection, you now begin what could be described by a passer by as the blessing of the wires. To no avail.  Now you must continue on, hoping that one of the truckloads of anxious -to -ride sledders barreling up 75, don’t ass pack you until you get to that exit, 18 miles up the road.

To avoid this scenario, check your wiring on this warm day that you’ve set aside the time for.

First, spray your trailer and your truck plug ends with an electrical contact cleaner or W-D 40 type product. Let it set.  You may even want to take a piece of sandpaper and scuff the male prongs on the plug.  This will remove the oxidation that occurred during the nine months the trailer sat idle.

While you have the WD-40 out, liberally spray the inside of the trailer coupling as well as your trailer ball.  The reason for this is because 95 % of trailer light problems are results of a poor ground. A 12 volt DC system relies heavily on proper grounding. This occurs through the ball and coupling. Your trailer lights are grounded to the trailer frame, which requires a solid metal to metal contact between the ball and coupling.  If you hook up your lights for the first time of the season and they don’t work, drive around the block. This will wear off the rust and make a good connection between the truck and trailer. Bulbs don’t go bad from sitting.

Now you’re ready to load up and as you’re traveling north with new tires and rims, with bearings packed full of fresh grease, with all running lights burning brightly, you’ll ride with confidence.  And if you pass a cold and lonely trailer sitting alone on the side of the highway, you’ll softly smile, remembering that warm fall day you took care of your trailer.