A couple summers ago I convinced a friend to buy a standup jetski. I didn't purposely leave him "out in the cold" but I never did buy one to join him on the water. This summer, however, I decided I'd take the plunge and get one for myself.
In preparation for the purchase, I ordered the Ironton PWC Trailer. It's a relatively inexpensive trailer, so I wanted to show some of the details I improved upon when assembling it.
First off, I laid out the components and fasteners, noting right away that the kit did not include washers. There are some locations where this wouldn't matter, but I did want to include them on the plates with slotted holes. A quick trip to Home Depot for 3/8" washers remedied that shortcoming.
Secondly, the wiring kit came with wire nuts. Since this trailer will be submerged fairly regularly, I decided to swap these for heat-shrink connectors and tubing/loom.
To route the wires within the frame tubes, I tied them to a padlock and let the weight of the lock guide them to the rear of the trailer (holding it upright).
The next change I made was the mounting of the axle.
The stock configuration is "spring-over-axle." Swapping this to create a "spring-under-axle" configuration allows the trailer to sit closer to the ground. Since I'll be pulling it with my Crosstrek, I'd prefer the trailer as low as possible.
The fenders still fit, but I suspect they may contact the tire under full compression. I'll circle back around to this detail later, as I'm kicking around the idea of fabricating storage compartments to take the place of the fenders.
To pull off the swap, I needed to reverse the leaf spring bolt so that the axle indentation would still fit over the stud and locate/center the axle.
The manufacturer purposely bends the thread of the bolt to prevent loosening, so I used a chisel to straighten it enough to unthread, then I ground the deformed threads before trying to rethread. I also used RED Loctite upon reassembly.
A few days later I decided that the springs were too stiff to allow much suspension movement, so I removed the center leaf from the pack.
The rest of the assembly was relatively straightforward. I checked the ball tension around the 1 7/8" ball I'd purchased previously, then fitted the padlock to the tongue lock.
One final tip: if you do buy one of these trailers, make sure to grab the title/registration info taped to the inside of one of the cardboard boxes before you take anything to the trash.
Hopefully I'll be mating this trailer to a Kawasaki 750sxi Jetski in another week or so!
UPDATE:
Later, I decided to convert the trailer to a flatbed of sorts. I'll create a separate cradle for the ski which I'll then attach to these wooden planks.
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