Batboat Rebuild: February 5th. Trailer wheels and new equipment stuff.

After nearly 5 months I am back to work on my Batboat!

I am going to move again. This time completely out of North Eastern Michigan to a more prosperous area in Metro Detroit. Been wanting to move there for a long time. Now that my economy has improved to pre-recession levels I will be moving soon.

The poverty level here in Saginaw is just too widespread and with nearly 70% of the housing being rentals the region is getting really run down. A Ghost Town with negative attitude.

There are very few things of interest for me to do here and most people I come across in my age group are usually low-lifes. Been that way for a while so its time to get out of Dodge.

However, before I take the boat on the road I'll need to replace both wheels and axle hubs. They are too old for safe driving. This boat will be my Uhaul and will travel over 600 miles to and from the new place.

I needed two jack stands and a trailer dolly so I bought those at Harbor Freight today and spent the evening putting the dolly together and dismantling the wheels and axles to see what I need to order.

The trailer is probably as old as I am. I wont say which is in better condition.

These tires are at least 20 years old, have slow leaks and the sidewalls are splitting. They need to be replaced before it goes on the road again.

The wheel hubs are going into the trash, also, just to be safe.

First, I need to find the diameter of the axle.

Yep, these are old. When I rotate the tires there is a slight grinding feel to them despite both still being fully packed with grease

My new trailer dolly and one of two jack stands.

The dolly came with a bunch of nuts, bolts and washers. However, the instructions did not show how to assemble it so most of today's working time was putting it together.

The tire and hub are off the axle. I did this to make sure the axle is one inch in diameter so no parts I order have to be returned. Just as I hoped, they measure one inch.

A greasy mess.

The new hubs will have a connection where I can pump in the grease instead of taking the hub covers off.

The trailer jack.

I am going to take this thing off and donate it to the garbage man and use the trailer dolly instead.

A lot of cranking has to be done to just raise it up over 6 inches and it is not worth it. Also, many times it gets in my way of doing things with the boat, including hitching the trailer to the car.

Now that I am back to work on the boat again I am in the Batboat frame of mind and motivated.

The backlog of updates from last year will be uploaded soon. Stay tuned!!