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S2 6.8 "Exciter" Sailboat Pages

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Trailer Improvements

August 19, 2009

New LED tail lights are on the way from Walmart. I ordered them and a couple of days later got a sale paper from Harbour Freight and they have them for the same money. I could have just driven up there and had them already. I also ordered a trailer jack from West Marine. It was on sale for $20. Its in the Harbour Freight paper too!
Here's the delux custom trailer jack - a bottle jack and chunk of firewood!

August 20, 2009

I took the old taillights off today, and the mounting plates. The lights go in the trash. The mounting plates have to be straightened and then painted.

You can see the lights are busted up and the mounting plate is bent and rusty.

The light mounting plates - bent and rusty.

I got the plates straightened out, and cleaned up and a coat of primer on them too. I also found some white epoxy spray paint on the shelf in the basement. Hard to imagine that its really epoxy paint in a spray can, but I think I'll give it a try.

August 26, 2009

I got the new trailer jack installed last night and the new lights completed this evening.
LED lights are the way to go. They are bright and very durable For only $20, a swing up roller jack is just to handy to do without.

July 14 & 15, 2010

I did some touch up painting on the trailer. I used my grinder with a wire brush attachment to clean some of the heavily rusted spots off at least until my grinder quit working. Then I primed the spots with Rustoleom, and put a finish coat of white Rust-Ox on. I also removed the bow stand and bow winch and painted the bow winch plate which was really rusted. I used some automotive touchup spray cans I had left over from some other project for that. I also lubed the gears and shafts on the winch.

The trailer with the winch/bow mast off & before painting.



Trailer with spots primed


A spot all cleaned up ready to prime




The winch and winch mounting plate.


The mounting plate all shiney

September 16, 2010

I sold the S2 and Marcin, the new owner needs to pull it to Columbus (Alum Creek). We discovered that the master cylinder was dry and rusty. I took it off yesterday and cleaned it all up. Put it back on tonight and will be bleeding the brakes. Should put things back in order enough for the trip to Columbus. I think Marcin plans to just replace the entire hitch/actuator, which is probably a good decision.

Here's the master cylinder all apart. One of the cover screws broke off, so I had to drill it out and retap it. You can see the new screw in the photo.

The brakes (at least on the left side, look really good. Very little rust and lots of brake lining left on the shoes.


The o-ring for the piston was worn down and so the master cylinder was leaking. I could have gotten a new o-ring but thought that made no sense if Marcin is going to replace the whole actuator. So I simply put a slip of aluminum under the o-ring. I simply cut a little slip of aluminum from a pop can - you can see a little of it in the photo (arrow pointing to it).

Here's the master cylinder after I cleaned it up. You can see how corroded it is inside.