Successful caster mod

[robbo3]

I tried unsuccessfully earlier in the year to get my boat in the garage at our lake house, but found the door was trim lowered the height to about 6'11". With the caster mod in place, I came in at about 3/4" too tall with the tower mounts. After thinking about it for a few months, I thought to try removing the front trailer tires, giving me a pivot point further back.

That seemed to do the trick, even though I still just barely squeaked under the door. I couldn't get the front tires back on in the garage (opener), but put bottle jacks on each side of the trailer to relieve some of the stress on the rear axle.

Before:


During:


After:

 

[GTBRMC]

Nice work! Persistence pays off.

 

[njmr2fan]

Way to think outside the box!

 

[Ronnie]

Nice.

Could you just deflate the front trailer tires instead of remove them? If so You could probably reinflate them once the boat is in the garage to avoid using the jacks entirely.

 

[robbo3]

I tried deflating the front tires on my failed attempt earlier this summer and ran into some issues with it.

1. It took incredibly long do deflate and inflate the tires again. I can remove/reinstall the tires fairly quickly.
2. Even when deflated, it didn't drop the trailer enough due to the rims.
3. The deflated tires created more resistance and several of us were unable to push the boat. I was able to get it in the garage myself with the tires removed.

This is definitely not something I'd want to do every week, but it'll work for free winter storage.