Adding up the Add-Ons for Boat Trailers

Like any vehicle purchase, trailers, new and used, come with a wide variety of options to make your towing life a little easier. Among the most popular add-ons are the tongue-jack, bearing buddies, spare-tire mounts, and load guides.

“We put a tongue-jack on every trailer that comes in here,” says Sandy Gordon of Gordon Marine, “even if it’s just for our convenience when we’re moving boats around. The only reason we take one offis if the customer doesn’t want to pay for it.” At $50–$80, a tongue-jack takes the strain out of hitching and unhitching your trailer, since its swivelling jack arm is attached to a wheel that is fixed behind the trailer’s coupling hitch. Crank up the tongue-jack and your trailer rises off the ball hitch with minimal strain, adding a front wheel to your unhooked trailer.

Bearing buddies allow trailer owners to pump grease into the wheel bearings, and consist of a grease nipple that goes on the end of the wheel hub. For a mere $20–$30, they are an inexpensive way to maintain your hub life, but don’t let their simplicity tempt you into overgreasing. “A lot of people keep pumping grease into the bearing until it starts coming out the other side, breaking the seal,” says Tom Blight of Doral Marine and Recreation. “Then they back into the water and get moisture in the bearing.”

Spare-tire mounts can be picked up for as little as $40, plus the cost of your wheel and tire, and are often mounted on the tongue. Ross Gordon, a co-owner of Gordon Marine, says that for $100–$150 you can put load guides on your trailer, whether it’s bunk or roller. Essentially an L-shaped bracket that bolts onto the trailer frame, a load guide will centre the boat as you approach the trailer. “They help you load the trailer in windy conditions or rough water.”

 

Related Links

Buying the right boat trailer

 

 

Published in the April/May 2002 issue of Cottage Life magazine.

Copyright © 2002 by Cottage Life. All rights reserved. Reproduction of any article, photograph, or artwork, for other than personal use, in whole or in part, without the written permission of the publisher is strictly forbidden.