There has been a lot of discussion on the CharlestonFishing.com Boats and Motors Page here recently on hubs, axels, and springs. These are all items that see significant abuse from the saltwater and must be maintained and replaced regularly unless of course you enjoy spending time broken down on the roadside.
While opinions may vary some as to how often to grease, repair, or replace some of these items all will agree perhaps the single most important preventative maintenance item is a good freshwater wash as soon as you return home from the ramp.
Over the years I have spent countless hours tucked up underneath the boat attempting to hit every nook and cranny of the axels, hubs, springs, etc. with the garden hose. Reaching all this hardware can be a little bit difficult and is time consuming.
Since I am both meticulous about taking care of my stuff and like to multitask to get a job done well I knew there had to be a better way to flush the trailer than crouching underneath the boat with the garden hose in hand. The solution was very simple, only cost me a few bucks, and I wish I had done it sooner.
After a quick trip to the hardware store I buried a piece of 1-inch PVC directly under where I park the boat. The PVC pipe runs parallel with the axels and is positioned so it will be centered between the axels when the boat is parked. One end of the PVC is capped while the other end has a 90-degree bend with a short piece of pipe that extends above grade with a hose bib on the end. Centered underneath the trailer are two Rain Bird pop up fan sprinkler heads. (See attached pictures.) Note-if you park your boat in different locations each time or if you park it on concrete, you could substitute the end cap and 90 for (2) Tees and attach a couple of short pieces of PVC with caps to keep the assembly from flopping over on its side. Now when I return to the house I simply hook the garden hose up and run the sprinklers while I unload the boat. After they have run for a while and washed down the under