There’s not been much work done on Shoal Waters for the last seven weeks, I had minor surgery on both feet which has meant I’ve been unable to walk properly due to the dressings and the discomfort, if not outright pain.
Now that my dressings have changed to less obtrusive ones and I can walk, sort of, I can get on with things that do not require me to wear shoes, that’s agony, nor kneeling down as putting my feet in that position is also just a tad painful.
However, the work needs to get started as the evenings are getting darker and I still have a great deal of work to do.
Today’s task is to start work on the trailer.
In order to work on the railer I needed to move it out of the weeds that have grown around it and onto the drive so that both sides are accessible.
Each of the u-bolts holding the three under-slung cross-beams were cut using an angle grinder. I could possibly have removed a few of the nuts but to be honest, that would have been a lot of work for a only a little gain, so I bought a pack of 20 metal cutting disks for the angle grinder from Amazon yesterday and once they had arrived today I was able to get going.
Then each of the legs of the bolts were drifted out with a hammer and drift. One or two of the legs had to be hammered really hard to get the to move due to the rust, but they all came out eventually.
With all the rusted u-bolts removed, the cross-beams were put on top of the side beams. The rollers were taken out at this point as they tipped the beam over if left in place.
New u-bolts were then put into place as shown here. I was unable to get shorter ones that still fitted so these longer ones will be cut down once all is ready to be reassembled.
I didn’t tighten up the nus, they were just put on to stop the u-bolts from falling out.
The threading on the legs of the u-bolts is onlu just enough to allow the nuts to be tightened up, but I noticed that on one u-bolt the thread seemed to be short as you can see here.
Comparing it to one of the other u-bolts I have in the workshop, the thread on this u-bolt is certainly too short for these cross-beams. I’ll use that on one of the two new cross-beams which are taller than the three old ones, and use one of the other u-bolts with a longer thread.
As you can see, the thread now extends to below the washer.
However, the thread still isn’t really long enough and will stop the nuts from being tightened down completely, so I have ordered some M12 penny washers, which are 2mm thick and 30mm in diameter, to put under the smaller washer seen here. Two per leg will easily allow the nuts to be fully tightened down.
That’s all I’m going to do today as even walking around causes my feet to hurt and I’ve had enough. The next task will be to cut the legs down to the correct size once the washers arrive, drill two holes in each end of the new cross-beams and fit those in place. At that point it will be possible to but Shoal Waters back on the trailer and wheel her into the Hay Barn.
Mind you, I’ll have to clear out a space for her first as Naiad’s trailer is in there covered in various bits and bobs.
Having two trailers is a little bit of a problem in two ways. Firstly there is the nomenclature. Since both will be used for both boats at different times, calling them Naiad’s Trailer and Shoal Waters’ Trailer is technically not correct, so I’ve decided to call this one the working trailer and the other the travelling trailer. This one will only be used for working on the boats and the other will now only be used to transport the boats. Seems like a good idea.
Secondly, what to do with the trailer that isn’t in the Hay Barn? We don’t have any other space for it under cover and leaving it out all year. in all weathers round will cause it to rot away. So, I’ll also have to build a small shelter of some description for the trailer that isn’t in the hay barn. Two steps forward, one step back.
Time for a cup of tea.
And a soak in the hot tub. I ache!