I've been doing the kayak thing for awhile now and my kayak fleet is growing. I bought a 14' jon boat trailer a couple years ago to haul my kayaks and with a little cutting and a lot of welding I made my first kayak trailer. It sure was a lot easier to haul my kayaks. I didn't have to car top them and it opened up the back of my truck to haul the rest of my gear.
Well about the time I bought the jon boat trailer I started looking at other options. I looked at a company called Yakima who makes a trailer that is made entirely of aluminum. Yea, that's right, it only weighs 150 lbs., has 16" motorcycle tires, and independent suspension. Being so light would no doubt help with my gas mileage. The high clearance with the 16" tires and the lack of a through axle would also lend it's self very well to off road. Well I gave ACK a call and ordered it. I have to give ACK thumbs up on their delivery time. I ordered it on a Monday at 1 p.m. and on Tuesday it was waiting on my door step ready for me to assemble.
Yep, five boxes and ready to be put together. It didn't take me very long to bring everything inside the house,
grab a picture and start opening the boxes.
I did go ahead and opt for the spare tire.
It didn't take too long to get a part count and make sure everything had arrived safely. OK, so it was time to put her together. It doesn't take very many tools to assemble: a tape measure, a few wrenches, pair of pliers, phillips screwdriver, and I was ready! It started with installing the cross-members.....
which are firmly attached by 16 bolts at the bottom .
From this point the shocks are installed with the provided shock pins.
A little grease on the pins and they slide in easily.
Installing the license bracket and light went on very fast with just a couple screw's. Then it was time to take here out side to mount the wheels. Yep, she had outgrown the living room. ;)
The last thing to do before she went outside was to mount the center rail. The center rail is attached by inserting the T-bolts in the bottom of
each cross member which slide on to the bolts and
are secured with the washers and Nyloc nuts.
The wheels were a gravy job to mount. A wheel axle bolt is slid through the swing arm with just a touch of grease. The tire is then slid on. A washer and a castle nut secures the tire with a cotter pin to lock it all together.
The cross bars used to hold the kayaks down are mounted by sliding 4 T-bolts down the rails and placing the aluminum mounting blocks on the bolts. The blocks are then centered on the trailer and secured with a washer and 17mm nylock nuts.
You then slide the black round crossbar on top of the aluminum blocks and tighten. Installing the tongue was simply a matter of just opening the black locking mechanism, sliding the tongue in the trailer and securing it with a tongue pin with a Bow-Tie cotter bin on the back side.
At this point all the wire connectors were attached, the spare tire was attached, and she was rolled over to mount on my kayak hauler.
In conclusion, I have only had the opportunity to get the trailer out once so far and only went about 20 miles. As expected I never felt the trailer behind me. As with the smaller jon boat trailer you don't see much of the trailer while in transit, about all I see is my kayak sticking up on the trailer. I did get off road a little and I'm extremely happy with the way it performed. As I was going down the road I tried to hit a couple pot holes to see how the shocks would handle the abuse and was very pleased with how the shock and swing arm design preformed. I will say I took a couple years of welding and this is some of the best I've seen. The trailer went together very well with all the parts fitting like a glove. I'll come back in a few months and give a final thought report but initially I am extremely pleased with the trailer and it's abilities.
