I generally fish solo, and one thing I miss about my old lead sled was the big fiberglass step the trailer had.
It's really the first step down from the boat, when I'm trailering back up, that I needed to address.
- Located a couple trailer steps online to use as supports
- Sourced a piece of 12" x 24" x .25" aluminum tread plate (of all places, Grainger had the best price)
- Had some rubber samples from work, so I cut 2 pieces to be placed on the top of the trailer tube
- Then wrapped the trailer tube with 3M Friction Tape for the width of the gripping plates
- Chamfered the corners of the tread plate a bit (as much as I could do without getting a machine shop involved).
- Mounted the 2 steps, then mounted the tread plate on top.
- Then used pop rivets to mount the rubber edge trim.
Seems to be a good solution so far. Tread plate sits about 1-1/4" above the surface of the trailer tube (so I can't be wildly off center trailering up). About $150 all in (including new stainless steel hardware).
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