I Hate Trailers

I hate trailers.

Yet, here I am again, carting a Crosley behind my Toyota, on my way to the annual West Coast Crosley Club meet. This time, at least I have a good excuse...

Shortly after we tore my garage down, I loaned my Crosley wagon to the California Auto Museum to be displayed as part of their temporary Microcar exhibit. The Crosley was there from February to August, which was great since I didn't have anywhere to put it while the new house/garage are being built. While the car was in the museum, I reshuffled some stuff in my storage to make room. I'd been storing a friend's GT6 project for about a year and it was time for that to move along. With that out of the way I had just enough room to squeeze the Crosley in.

I got the Crosley out of the museum at the end of the show and drove it over to West Sac - the battery was nearly dead from sitting so long, and, more unhappily, the brakes were really spongy. I checked the master cylinder - it was full. I checked all the backing plates, hoses and lines, but couldn't find any evidence of a leak. I'd rebuilt the brakes when I got the car from the Bell family about four years ago, so I was surprised to be having issues. Given that there were no leaks and the reservoir was full, I figured that the master cylinder must have gone bad. I ordered a new one from Service Motors.

No big deal, right? Brakes are a pretty simple system, and I've rebuilt Crosley brakes several times. No worries.

But.... most of my tools, including all of my jack stands, my shop lights, my brake pliers, etc... are currently locked in a storage container in the middle of nowhere with the rest of my garage stuff. And, while I could fit my car in my West Sac storage spot, it barely fit. I was knee deep in a couple house projects (getting the old house ready to rent out once we move into the new place) so I couldn't dig in right away. I got to a stopping point a few couple weeks before the meet and figured I could knock the brakes out in a day or two.

First order of business was to pull the carpet up and cut a hole in the floor.

When I first bought the car I was surprised to find that the floors had been repaired - there must have been significant rust, and Frank had welded in new sheet metal in the front floors. One of those repaired areas was directly in front of the driver's seat.  If you are familiar with 1949-52 Crosleys, you know that the master cylinder is located just below the floor in that spot - there is a plug in the floor that covers a 2" hole in the sheet metal that lets you access the reservoir.  Much to my surprise, Frank had welded in replacement floors, but had never cut the hole, so the only way to fill the master cylinder was with a pump and tubing, and you could only check it by sticking your finger in while laying under the car. I had employed some colorful language when I was learning the necessary pump-and-dump system to fill the master cylinder (and splash brake fluid overflow all over myself and the floor) and swore I'd fix it the next time I messed with the brakes.

One tool not in storage was my drill and a two-inch hole saw. I center-punched the floor directly over the master cylinder and cut a neat hole in the proper spot. I used a rounded hand file to get rid of the burrs and sharp edges, and the replacement floor plug I got from Service Motors was a perfect fit.

Before I pulled the master cylinder I needed to be ready to drain the fluid. My drip pans were all in storage, so I walked over to the nearby gas station to see if I could buy something to use; there was no auto parts section in the attached store, but I found some peanut butter cookies in a plastic clamshell box... I cut the lid off and the bottom made a decent small drip pan. I unhooked the hoses and fittings from the master cylinder and pulled it.

That makes the process sound much smoother than it actually was. Without having the car on jackstands I could barely squeeze myself under the car with a bunch of wriggling and scooching, and then, only on my back - I couldn't turn to the side at all. That made wrench and socket handling slow-going, and most of the time I couldn't look directly at what I was doing. Even more inconvenient, I had almost no room for my legs when I was under the Crosley - on one side the car was 15" from the wall, on the other, 15" away from a 1952 Dodge. Everything took waaaaay longer than it should have, and it took me nearly all day to cut the hole in the floor and get the master cylinder out.

After a couple of days I finally got the new master cylinder in place and hooked back up to the rest of the plumbing. I bled the brakes and managed to squirt a bunch of fluid all over the rear axle with a looser-than-expected rear brake valve. From there on, everything seemed like a mess... I used every rag I had cleaning up the fluid and wiping down the axle and backing plates. There was so much fluid I had a hard time knowing if things were leaking or if it was just an old drip from the earlier fluid explosion. I will say that the hole in the floor made filling the reservoir a million times easier than it had been before.

No matter how much I bled the brakes, I couldn't get any more pedal... and with no space/tools to pull the brake drums, I started to think about other options for getting the Crosley to the meet... or even leaving it home.

I have a trailer - a tiny, flimsy, janky Harbor Freight trailer that I bought used for $50 and then hauled Crosleys all over creation with for five years. But, it was never really up to the task, and I've been borrowing trailers anytime I needed to pull my car anywhere for the past few years. I really only use a trailer once every year or two, so it hasn't been much of an issue.  But let's face it - borrowing any tool repeatedly feels kinda lame, and at some point you want to step up and just buy the damned thing.

I'd seen a small used trailer on Craigslist for $450 a week or two back and had noticed that it was plenty big enough for a Crosley, but still small enough to park in the 8-foot-wide driveway that will be poured next to the new house/garage. I drove up to Fiddletown one night after work, kicked the tires, haggled the guy down to $425, and drove back with my "new" trailer. Needs some welding and could use new wood on the deck, but the hauling platform is 10' X 6', so it will haul a Crosley (or even something huge, like a VW Beetle) with ease and it's light enough that I can roll it around by hand when it's empty. Loading the station wagon on it was painless, and the whole assembly pulled perfectly the whole way to Pacific Grove - a far cry from the old Harbor Freight special.

But I still hate trailers.

to be continued...