Cob Jockey

Yesterday I made the hike up to northeast Indianapolis to pick up my trailer from the guy who was working on it.  Here's the full recap on how I met these folks and why I didn't take it to a shop.  Turned out to be a fantastic decision!

Doors!  We have doors!  And two fenders!  And a legal license plate!

To say I am thrilled with the work he did is an understatement.  I had just asked him to do the doors as I originally discussed with his wife, then I thought I'd take it to a trailer shop for the rest of it, but when he saw it needed more than just doors, he offered to do more.   Full list of what he ended up doing:

- Rebuilt and re-hung upper doors, including new weatherstripping
- Hung new fender
- Inspected brakes and repacked bearings
- Re-riveted the roof back on where it was coming off the trailer
- Removed JenJ's Texas plate and added mine (we're finally legal!)
- Redid the corner weatherstripping on the ramp
- Caulked the gravel guard that caused the tack room leak

New doors!  He got the shiny grey inside skin from a friend at a semi-truck repair shop.

And that list was just what I asked him to do.  He also noticed some things in the course of working on it that he took it upon himself to fix:

- Tightened all of my loose bolts, and there were a lot of them. Butt bars, hinges, door locks.
- Wire brushed and sprayed the rusted rims with Rustoleum Gray.  Even the spare.
- Noticed my lug nuts were three different sizes and replaced the weird ones so they're all one standard size now.
- Probably greased my jack.  He didn't tell me he did this, but it goes up and down with about 1/10th the effort now.

Rims before

Rims after

As he worked on it, he sent me photos of consumable parts and progress, and when he inspected the brakes he even took it out for a drive himself to see how it pulled and how the brakes felt.

One of his photos

When I picked it up, he insisted on being there so he could show me a few things, including teaching me how to rivet.  He pointed out that entire trailer is held together with rivets, even the padding in the horse area is riveted on, so I should know how to rivet.  I always assumed riveting was tough to DIY, but it's just a hand tool you pump a couple of times to seat the rivet.

He actually left the back left light access panel off the trailer until I got there so he could both teach me how to change the lights (no replaceable bulbs in KB's, you gotta change the whole housing out) and teach me how to rivet.

Shiny new rivets clearly visible in the brown strip.

One thing he didn't do is replace the small rotted area in the tack room floor.  He started to, and then learned that the tack room floor actually goes into the frame and underneath the aluminum skin (and knowing that, the fact that the leak was actually the gravel guard makes even more sense), so replacing that section is a Really Big Job instead of a quick one.

But, that section is not rotted through, is very small, is in an area that won't see horse or human standing on it, and the rest of the floor is in great shape, so he advised me that it wasn't worth my money to replace right now, especially since we fixed the leak that caused it.

Shiny new fender  and finally legal plate.

Rig glamour shot.