salt water use

[cgriebs]

Unfortunately, galvanized trailers rot from the inside out when subject to salt water. Pretty obvious if you think about it. Try flushing your trailer after you use it and you will see that the cross members are fed water from the main rails. Just stick the hose in the rails, from underneath near the nose of the trailer, while the trailer is level. I use whatever is left in the SaltAway container for this part of my post-ride wash up.

My local body shop will be painting my LS trailer this summer. When I spoke to the guy at the BoatMate factory (for paint supplies), I told him I was using in salt. His first response was "I hope you're flushing after use". My answer was a rather emphatic "certainly". The process takes all but 2 minutes and can't do harm.

Regarding the flush kits on brake systems: the only flush kits I've seen on boat trailers are for drum brakes - they rot from the inside out as well. For disc systems, just wash the (disk) brakes with hose pressure and you should be ok. My discs perform flawlessly in salt water use because they're washed liberally after use.

As an x-commercial fisherman here on the north shore of Long Island, I speak from experience. My galvanized work trailers got hammered (no flushing), but my pleasure boat trailers get better maintenance, and consequently, they'll last longer. Seems like a no-brainer to me.