Wire Brushing My Ball and Other Trailer Maintenance

[Don P]

We had company one weekend and decided to go float the river Sunday morning. Nice leisurely morning and we eventually rounded the corner to the boat ramp a little after lunch. A sea of wet white and a dunking going on. By the time the halleluiahs were over I had a half dozen new friends hanging out around the bend with us  :D

[YellowHammer]

I cut my teeth as a young kid launching our bass boat on some of the most stressful and hectic boat launches in the country, on the most tournament fished lake in the country, Lake Guntersville.  We have 8 lane launching ramps, pre tournament lines a quarter mile long, and tournament bass fishermen lit up on coffee at 4:30 in the morning.  Going slow is not an option and it's amazing how fast boats can be launched and recovered by professional bass fisherman.  

I remember many years ago there was a tornado storm coming in and it was near panic trying to get the pros out of the water on a practice day with a green sky.  I had seen the storm, made a run for it and was safe at the ramp waiting it out and next thing I knew, I was thrown some keys and became part of the trailer recovery crew, backing trailers in the water and pulling the pro boats out as fast as we could, with the pros (none that I recognized) still in them.  It was a lot of fun.

    

[Tom King]

When I had the inboard ski boat in Florida that I mentioned earlier, we used to do a lot of skiing on a small lake in Boca Raton.  It was sand all the way around it, and not really a ramp, but people launched on sand "ramps".

The boat was a recovered Ski Nautique with a 390 Ford out of a wrecked police car.  My tow vehicle was a 1970 Olds 442.

My girlfriend at the time would drive the car.  I'd push it to get it going with the boat on the trailer, and cut the engine as soon as she got it out of the water.  Without pushing with the boat, the car would only spin on the hard sand.  I could give it enough of a push to get it going pretty good.

edited to add:  I decided to check with Google, and it looks like that lake is now called Sunset Cove, and has nice boat ramps.

[Old Greenhorn]

Well, I didn't mean to hijack this thread into a boat ramp thread but it looks like I got help. ;D Tom, I bet that boat could kick out the HP and with the right prop could be downright scary. 
 I have to admit, it was just as much fun watching folks put-in and pull boats that were good at it because I learned stuff.
 But frankly in the suburban area we were in with the newly successful folks who knew they needed to have a nice boat in the driveway to look successful, we had a very high number of folks with money but zero nautical background or education. I was raised on a boat, so it was easy to laugh. Shame on me. ;D
 I watched many a pair of folks, married or otherwise that would back down once, run the boat up, and pull it out in 2 minutes. OTOH, I 'bout split my gut on the ones that were screaming and yelling and sometimes backing their Caddy up to the trunk in the salt water. The ones that needed a tow out, and one or two pull vehicles that we learned could float. I could sit there eating a shrimp basket, having a beer and laugh until I cried some days.
 My Dad worked for a guy when I was about 11 years old and he had some surplus cash after building his custom house so he bought a decent new boat. He had only been on other folks boats and never drove one. He rented a slip near his house at the same marina my Dad had walked to as a kid in the 30's. My Dad was in boats before he could walk, he built them, owned them, repaired them, and ran all sorts his whole life (Norwegians, right?). His father was a seaman at the age of 14 and also built boats as a necessity and part of life. So this guy asks my Dad to spend a day with him showing him how to run and handle it. Pop was also a senior officer in the Power Squadron and tried to get him to take a class or three, but he had 'no time for that, just show me once'. Well Pop took me along that day and let me just say, the guy was not a really sharp student. He put us up on a couple of sandbars, hit three other boats during repeated attempts to learn how to back the boat into his slip, and he didn't like observing 'no wake' signs or inland speed limits. He did everything too fast and with little forethought, he expected it to steer like a car and stop when he wanted. :D Even at my young age, I recognized quickly that my Dad was threading the needle of his patience with his boss and probably also regretting having me there trying not to laugh (he gave me 'the look' just once). This was a new thing for me , seeing adult tension and feeling it myself, but of course, not really understanding it except that I remember thinking "This guy doesn't deserve this boat, he can't run it."
 We got in the car after that was all done and he rocked his head back and let out a long sigh. First and last time I think I ever saw that. Then he picked his head up, looked at me and said "You look like you could really use an ice cream, and I could really use a drink. Let's go home." A rough day for him, a real life learning day for me.

 For the record and keeping with the OP. I do NOT wire brush my balls, I do grease them on the heavier trailers doing frequent duty, but not so much the light ones. I try to just use 2" or 2-5/16" balls, ain't got no time for smaller. I do have a pintle, but that's not part of this.

[doc henderson]

how often do you call pull a hub to inspect bearings, and or grease them.  what kind of grease?

[Big_eddy]

Funniest thing I ever saw at a boat launch was an advertising bench for the local divorce lawyer. I'm sure he got plenty of calls after some of the shenanigans I've seen.

[Jim_Rogers]

There's a guy who posts almost daily videos of a boat ramp loading and unloading boats off trailers and all the problems that these people have with doing it.
Some are pretty funny.

Jim Rogers

[SawyerTed]

how often do you call pull a hub to inspect bearings, and or grease them.  what kind of grease?

I repack boat trailer bearings once a year or if a cap or seal fails.  
Utility and equipment trailers every two or three years.  
The camper bearings get an annual inspection and repacked more based on mileage-10,000 or so.  
I use marine grease in all of them. 

[chet]

@SawyerTed if ever there was a "hook" ta git folks to check out your thread, wire brushing yer ball has got ta be it. :D :D :D

[Stephen1]

Abosolutly nothing more entertaining and comic than a busy boat launch. We use go to one in September as it got to cold t our lake for skiing. It was a nice sunday morning of skiing on a river and then back to this 6 lane bloat launch. We always pulled our boat out first and then would fire up the BBQ at a table. It was the most entertaining couple of hours, splitting your gut laughing. Boats sinking, no plugs, boats floating down the river with no one in them, coming out crooked on the trailer, over and over and over again.

[scsmith42]

how often do you call pull a hub to inspect bearings, and or grease them.  what kind of grease?

Annually with Mystic JT6.