Hey folks, Glenn May here with BassResource.com. And if you've been watching my videos for any amount of time now, you know that I like to really take care of my equipment. I make sure that the rods and reels are performing correctly. And I do a lot of checking and maintenance on my boat, as well as taking it in for service on a routine basis. And the reason I do this is very simple, especially with the boat and the trailer, is it avoids having some expensive, unexpected part failure that's gonna leave me off the water right in the middle of the fishing season. And nobody wants that. So when you do regular maintenance, you can schedule when you take your boat in and you can, you know, plan for that budget, make sure you've got that expense ready to go. So it's not gonna affect you as negatively. There's all kinds of other benefits, but that's the main thing.
Now, one of the things I do between my annual visits is I make sure that I check everything out thoroughly, you know, at least a couple times a year. And then I give it some routine inspections too. So for example, when I launch the boat and I've gone out fishing, I come back at the end of the day. When I go up to get the truck and trailer, I give that trailer a quick once through. I just give it a visual check, takes about 30 seconds to walk around it. And I'm looking for anything egregious, right? Anything is broken, anything that's cracked, anything that's missing, something looks like it's failed or amiss, or just not where it's supposed to be. I just look for anything that, you know, stands out. And if you do that on a routine basis, you get a pretty good idea of what your trailer looks like. So you know what's amiss when you look at it.
So it was upon one of these times when I did this. I came back from a trip. I went to go look at the trailer. And it just, by happenstance, the guy next to me had the same exact trailer as me. And so I just did, "Hey, I'm going to do a quick comparison, see what's different." So I started looking between the two trailers and everything looked fine. But one thing that I noticed was that the clearance between the tire and the fender right at the top, his was a lot more than mine. And I did a quick check. You know, I was able to stick, you know, more than, you know, three fingers between the tire and his fender, I had actually four almost, plenty of room. I checked mine and I only had two fingers and a little bit of wiggle room. And I went and checked the other side and I had three fingers, but it's pretty snug. I had barely got those in there. So, you know, something was wrong. It just wasn't right. And it was a little off.
So what I did is I decided to take the trailer to a trailer shop, a place that only works on trailers. They do horse trailers, boat trailers, you know, anything you can pull behind a truck, that's all they do. They work on the suspension, all the other parts of a trailer. I took it there and I told them my findings. The tech climbed underneath the trailer. And I swear, within 90 seconds, he popped his head out and he said, "Yup, I know what the problem is. Your equalizers and shackles are all worn out." And I looked at him, I went, "My what did what?" You know, "What language are you speaking?" And he said, "Well, it's the equalizers and shackles. They're worn out and they need to be replaced."
Here's what he's talking about. As you can see right here, this is...right here between the two tires on a twin axle trailer, that dark piece of metal in the lower middle is the equalizer. And the two oblong pieces of metal on either side are the shackles. And they attach to the springs and is part of an independent suspension system on this particular trailer.
Now, I'm gonna be the first to tell you right now that not all trailers are made the same, not all manufacturers have the same approach. And this trailer as a matter of fact, this is a Ranger. The newer Rangers don't even do this anymore. But some other trailers still do. It's just, you know, your mileage may differ. However, what is the same is that they all got metal on metal parts that are moving. They're designed to move, and flexes, and to keep the independent suspension working. So when you've got metal on metal parts, you're gonna have parts that wear out.
And so that was the issue with this. And here's what happened. This is the equalizer, he's talking about worn out. Look at that. Look how that wore out. That's supposed to be a circle. That is not. It's absolutely worn out. Now, these are okay. These are still fine. But that part completely wore out.
Furthermore, the shackles and the bolts, you know, I threw those parts away before I thought about doing this video. But I did find a picture on the web that showed the exact same problem that I had. You can see here on the top, this is the equalizer. On the right hand side is the bolt. And you can see, look at that. Come on now. My bolts look actually worse than that. And on the left-hand side, that's the shackle. Look at the oval on that. Look at how close it...you know, there's very little metal left on the top. And I think mine were a little bit worse than that.
So I was really close to a catastrophic failure while I was towing down the road going 65 miles an hour. So wait, what? Yeah. You say you go faster than 65 miles an hour. Well, I get that. You know, a lot of people do. They feel very comfortable towing down the road, going faster, 70 plus miles an hour without any issue. The problem is stuff like this. These parts can fail without notification. And now, you got yourself a big problem on your hand if you're going faster than you should be. So keep that speed down just for that safety precaution. PSA over.
Here's the thing, and here's the key takeaway with these parts here, is I've taken my boat religiously every year for service. And I make sure I have them check more than just the engine. I want them to check the whole trailer. And a lotta people focus just on the bearings. And so I make sure when I talk to the dealership, "I want you to check more than the bearings. Tell me how the suspension is doing, the springs, everything else on that trailer, make sure there's nothing wrong."
And I've taken it to three different dealerships over the years. This boat is more than 15 years old and has seen many different mechanics, and not a one of them saw this, not one.
Now, I'm not gonna ding dealerships and say they're bad at this. But what I'm saying is that they're accustomed to doing the routine maintenance. Parts like this, they get worn out over, you know, the course of many years. They don't replace them very often. They may not be looking for that kind of thing.
So I urge you to take your trailer to a place that does only trailers. Like I said, it took the tech 90 seconds to figure out what it was. He knows it that well. And it pays to do that. Shop rates really cheap.
A matter of fact, the parts are replaced with less than 100 bucks, Shop rate was 60 bucks. And because the guy knew what he was doing so well that he got it done in 45 minutes. I was in and out the door, same day, less than 200 bucks, problem solved, done. No more issues.
So just, you know, a couple key lessons on this stuff as well-trained as you think you are to well-experienced as you think you are on these things, if you feel very comfortable mechanically, you just don't know what you don't know. So take it into somebody who's qualified and experienced to do it.
Number two, make sure you do your routine maintenance. And number three, take your trailer into a place that knows trailers so they can give it a thorough inspection, and make sure that nothing is awry, and nothing is gonna cause you any problems.
With that in mind, I hope that helps. For more tips and tricks like this, visit BassResource.com.
