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Trailer repair (what am I missing?)


Ken_Potts

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  So after less than a year and a half I'm trying to install a couple of new rollers on the trailer for my Core Sound 17.  The rear-most roller has worn all the way through to steel.  I went out and got another roller.  It's the kind that has a shallow vee in it and a groove at the center to keep the keel centered.  It's similar to the one I've worn through but is supposedly more durable (it's transparent orange instead of black, if you're interested.)

  My problem is this - I can't get the push nuts off of the shaft that the roller is on.  The nuts (and shaft) aren't threaded.  The nuts look like little yellow-chromate steel top hats.  When I got the new roller I also purchased replacement nuts because they're obviously one-time-use things.  When I bought the nuts I asked the guy at West Marine (I know, bad idea to ask advice there) how to get the old nuts off the shaft.  He said I should just pry the nut off with a screwdriver.  That was about the technique I expected so off I went to replace the roller.

  I spent an hour and a half tonight prying and beating on the stupid nut as well as hacksawing the old roller off so I could get better purchase on the nut but I can't make it budge at all.  At this point the shaft is mangled and as I mentioned before I cut the roller off with a hacksaw and the only thing I can think of is grinding the nut off so I can salvage the brackets.

  What am I doing wrong?

  I even tried hacksawing the nut but I couldn't make a dent in it.

  So if these rollers wear out in such a short time it seems like there should be a way to replace one roller without throwing away the brackets and the shaft and the two bumpers on the ends (after all, the roller is available without the shaft and brackets).  If there's no easier way to get these push nuts off is there a source for shafts with threaded ends so I don't have to do this again in another year and a half?

  I would have posted pictures but on top of everything else my camera has disappeared ::)

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   Arr!  That's my new plan!

   Thanks for the suggestion.  I was blinded by frustration.  I'll take the chainsaw to it if'n I hafta  ;D

   For some reason I was stuck thinking I needed threads at both ends.  I'm off to find 5/8-11 galvanized bolts in a 13-14" length.  (I just checked - If I can't get them at the big-box stores McMaster-Carr will be happy to ship them).

  And I'm going to return those stupid push nuts I bought from West Marine, too.

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Those pressed fit keepers can be a pain to remove, but a trick I use is to toss some heat at them (just the cap now) with a torch, then take an adjustable wrench, set to just a wee bit wider then the shaft, jam it between the cap and roller, then whack the crap out of the wrench (moving around it's permeter as you go), which usually spits the cap into the front yard a fair distance.

I've used the double big screwdriver thing a few times with limited success. Heat the cap a lot and it'll loosen enough to smack it off.

There's a trailer rebuilder not far from here and they use a slide hammer with a 90 degree fork on the end, to pop those things off real quick. I thought it was a pretty cool, home made tool, but apparently the fork is an accessory for better auto body slide hammers.

The galvanized steel you'll get from a hardware store will be relatively soft and quite bendable mild steel and no where near the hardness of the ones you can't touch with a hacksaw.

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  PAR,

  The shaft isn't all that hard - I've mangled it trying to budge the nut so the hacksaw will probably work on it.  I'll see what I can find as far as hardened bolts go.

  The slide hammer would be great if I had a way to get to the nut.  The nut was stuck down into a counterbore on one of the rollers.  That roller (which was perfectly good) has been sacrificed to the disassembly effort.  I don't think I would have been able to heat the nut very well as long as it was down in that counterbore.  Maybe with a soldering iron.

  Konrad,

  I should have just replaced the whole thing.  Now my pride is involved so I'm going to salvage the brackets if it kills me... ;)

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Ken if you can heat those stainless caps up enough to drill a hole in the end you can drive the pin out with a drift.  I use a big pair of channel locks on them if I can get to the lip.  Sounds like you can't. Bud's fix is best, if you need to resorte to the saw next time it will be soft enough to cut.

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Geewizz city boy. Take your trusty angle grinder with a 24 grit pad on it and grind the top of the cap down until its gone and then remove the side lips with pliers or simular tool. Do you not got no basic tools such as an angle grinder? If you built a boat, thats the first tool in the tool box ain't it??? :P Worse case scenerio, go down to your local muffler shop and have them torch the cap. The flash point of epoxy is much higher than most polyester boats too.

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   Aww!  Konrad!

   Think bigger!  Dremel tool with cutting disk compared to angle grinder and 24 grit?  Wait...  You got me! never mind - You were trying to address the hard-to-access issue, weren't you?  If so that's no longer an issue because I hacksawed the end roller off last night so I've got scads of room to work with now.  All I really need is a sledge hammer and a 12 pack.  Actually, if I hadn't spent the whole evening on the phone tonight the brackets would be free by now.

   Having said that, I'm having fun reading all the angle grinder and 5-pound hammer references.  Keep them coming and I'll let everybody know when I go spend the 8 dollars on a pair of new brackets and get the trailer serviceable again...  I could press my belt sander into service but I haven't seen it since I loaned it to a neighbor (who swears I took it back but I didn't - I really didn't).  So now I'm in the market for an angle grinder AND a belt sander...

   I'm going to try running it over with my truck tomorrow.  Maybe tonight.  No I should wait until Friday night - That's got a weekend feel to it ;D

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Victory!

All it took was a metal cutting blade on the jigsaw.  It went through the 5/8" shafts like butter (Seriously - 10-15 seconds each, tops).  If I was smarter I would have done that earlier.  And it turns out the big box store had 5/8-11 x 16" galvanized bolts! (A touch longer than neccessary but it'll work.)

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No, My neighbor's not lilke that.  She borrowed both of my sanders, Belt and ROS and when I walked over to collect there was only one sander in the utility closet (the cheap ROS).  I think she assumed I had reposessed all of my tools and when I asked her about it later she reminded me that I had already taken the sander back.  I fully expect to buy a new sander (New tool - Woo Hoo!) only to have her return it the next day.  The good news is I'll be a hero when I donate my old sander to the cause (she does lots of cool stuff and deserves to have her own belt sander.)

   If she wasn't such a good friend I'd press the issue but she'll make good use of the old sander when she finds it.

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