Quote:
Originally Posted by Ste11a
I read somewhere that it would be cheaper to source a welder?? or other rather than go to a trailer repair company to check out and possibly repair anything that may be unsafe with our 1976 boler trailer. I can not locate what I read so wondering if anyone knew what the cheaper option would be to a trailer repair company?
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I am assuming that you have a Boler 1300 (13 foot). As a first step, I would inspect the frame yourself or with a mechanically inclined friend using Ian's guide to where to look for trouble spots. You may find some really obvious problems yourselves. Use a hammer to lightly but briskly tap rusty areas to see if the corrosion is through the steel. Look carefully for cracks and other signs of impending failure.
The other poster makes a good point that the screws through the floor that fasten the trailer to the frame are often badly rusted. The simplest solution is put new self-tapping screws beside the old, rusted ones, which will probably break off when you try to remove them. The next step might be to find a shop that specializes in springs and suspensions to check the axle and the frame, while up on a hoist.
In any case, if you have the original torsion bar axle, you will almost certainly want to replace that. I got my new axle with
brakes from Pacific Spring and Axle in Langley, BC in 2015. Best if you take in the old axle so that the new one is correctly sized. Even of you end up replacing the frame in the future, you will be able to use the new axle as it is a separate component from the frame.
As for the Ministry of Transportation rules in BC, don't worry too much about that as long as your
lights work and you have safety chains. Boler 1300s are
light enough that
brakes are not a legal requirement, unless your Boler weighs over 50% the
weight of your tow vehicle, which is unlikely. Here's another link on that subject
https://www.rvda.ca/ProvBrakeReqts.asp#BC