We bought a boat. Well, we bought a derelict hull for $200. We only wanted it for the lead on the keel so we can melt it down and put it in a bigger boat. But how to does one shift a 7.5m yacht 40km with only a regular sized tandem trailer. The deal was all or nothing. We had to remove the lot, so stripping what we wanted off the hull was not an option. We could pay to have it transported, but that would cost more than it was worth to us.
The solution:
Extend the trailers drawbar. Get the boat and a more versatile trailer. Sounds good.
Hidden behind our barn is a sad old rotten Mazda Titan with a 1 ton crane. Instant heavy duty sliding drawbar.
A few minutes with the angle grinder to remove the last two boom sections and the trucks donation is complete. Junk is awesome. Everyone should have their own backyard junkyard.
Marking out the cut for the new drawbar. Accuracy is key at this point. Find the center of the trailer and work from there. It's pretty essential to keep the drawbar straight and center. A crooked drawbar is not advisable. Our plan was to cut off the existing coupling bracket and slot the crane boom in its place. The boom would then be welded to the existing drawbar and chassis with the inner sliding section providing the drawbar extension. We were fairly trepadacious about cutting up our perfectly functional (and useful) trailer. But upgrades are upgrades.
With the bracket cut out to fit the crane boom, it slotted together perfectly. Time for welding.
The crane boom only reached the forward section of the chassis, so for extra support we decided to weld in two lengths of 40mm hollow section back to the next crossbar.
It's that easy. All that's left is to make a bracket for the coupling and extending the brake line and light cable.
The coupling bracket, a short section of channel steel, braced with a triangle of plate welded where the cable pulley used to sit. Important to get this sitting straight and level. We stood it on end an knocked around with a level until it looked right.
The completed sliding section with coupling bolted on and ready to go.
We had no trailer cable on hand. So stranded cable in garden hose had to suffice for the extension. It looks a little bit too agricultural for our taste. We've got to rewire the trailer soon anyway. So this will do until then.
The finished product. For the brakes we just got a 1.7m length of flexible brake hose made up by an engineering shop. Cost about $80 and took them only 10 minutes. The brakes are little spongier than they used to be due to the expansion in the hose, but they still function perfectly. A better option would be stainless braided hose, but $.
Not a bad deal for a day of grinding and welding.
Great Success! This towed like an absolute dream.
