[Bushwacker]

Hi John, I’ve included some thoughts/comments in bold type below.

Originally Posted by JUST JOHN

. . . I do like my roller trailer. Mine does have a lot of friction. I could not manually push the boat aft to replace the Y-block stop yesterday in the driveway. Also, I have 43 years worth of bottom paint on my SeaCraft so not sure how well it would slide on bunks... I would need plastic-topped front bunks I'm told. My takeaway is I should lube (replace!?) my rollers... Yes, with EZ Loader rollers AND axles! (Check out the parts on the EL web site or examine one of their trailers.) Your rollers may have flat-spotted. The ribs on the EZ Loader rollers limit the amount of flat-spotting and allow them to roll even if a couple of ribs are mashed flat. The yellow urethane rollers have lower ribs but are much harder and don’t seem to flat spot at all. I believe I drilled out the bores on some early urethane rollers and installed the plastic bushings from the EL rollers, but I think they now make them with hard plastic hubs to fit the EL axles so you don’t have to use the bushings; that setup on the large (~1”) diameter aluminum EL axles (which have 1/2” flats on the front and back sides that seem to reduce roller contact & drag) was nearly frictionless and did not require any lube! These little details are why the EL rollers seem to work so much better than conventional rollers on round steel shafts. My trailer had 2 racks with a total of 8 rollers supporting the front half of the boat and 2 racks with a total of 16 rollers mounted to the rear cross member, which was attached to the side rails with a couple of bolts that allowed the entire assembly to pivot. When launching, the bow would rotate up about 30 degrees when the CG passed over the rear cross member, and that’s when you needed the brake on the winch!

One idiosyncrasy of my trailer occurs when I dunk it too far. How far you back the trailer in is real important! If you back it in too far, the rollers don’t have a chance to guide the boat on the trailer. I installed a couple of urethane keel rollers on both sides of the aft cross member to start guiding the boat up on the trailer. (The SeaCraft hull is so deep forward that when you first start pulling boat on trailer, the keel will will hit aft cross member before the gang of small rollers make contact!) I backed trailer in so that the keel roller was just below the bow eye on the boat. (That would just barely get the tires wet on most ramps; the springs, axle and most of the rims were clear of the water.) That roller kept the boat centered on the trailer until the rollers on the rack engaged with the vertical steps on the hull, continuing to guide it straight on to the trailer. When the CG crossed over rear cross member, the bow would drop down on the front bank of rollers, which were also aligned with the vertical steps, and that continued to guide the boat straight on the rest of the way up the trailer. In the past, the starboard rear roller floats and can "kicks up" on end. I learned what not to do, and also affixed a rubber block to limit it's travel, so it doesn't happen much anymore. Also, I edited my above post to include the likely reason why my boat is always mounted skewed to port on the trailer...it's due to the weight of oil tank and battery on the starboard side (duh!). I never thought of it until you mentioned balance!