ShoreLand'r Winch Bar Help

I have a 1992 ShoreLand’r trailer whose winch bar needs reset, adjusted, or replaced. As you can see in the pictures below, the issue is that when you winch the boat onto the trailer the hook is pulled down at an angle and gets pinned against the bushing. This causes the hook to bend and makes launching the boat a real pain because the hook is stuck.

It seems to me the winch needs to be moved up the bar so the strap clears the bushing. Before I go changing things I wanted to check with someone who may have done this before. I think I need a few bolts, lock nuts and another support plate or big washers since the winch post is the telescoping kind. Am I on the right track?

Does anyone have experience in fixing this issue? Any tips or recommendations are greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading.

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   winch1.jpg
   

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   winch2.jpg
   

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   winch-full.jpg
   

The bow is too high in the front.The strap should be in a straight line from winch to bow eye.The winch looks like it can’t go any higher.Ideally,drop the front of boat,and the winch stand can be tilted down.Hard to see what the whole set-up on the trailer looks like.

Can the winch stand be moved a little towards the tongue?It almost looks like the rear support rollers/bunks are too low.Boat should be fairly level when fully loaded on trailer.I’ll bet that is a bear to winch it on,with all that pressure on the flat guide roller?Winch strap should be in a straight line from bow eye to winch drum when loading.

Well, I can see that it’s a 92 —- what 25 years old!
looks to me that the bow stop, winch strap and the hook it self is shot!!
replace those and don’t crank it up so far.
be nice to see what boat size is.
but looking at the wear on the bow it has been cranked up to far.

The bow stop looks like it is about cut in half. the strap has been broke and tied to the hook, and the hook has also had the latch broke off.

if you are going keep a while, get a good bow stop. not the cheap black ones. they are soft and no bushing in them.
even and you are not going keep it, I would get a good one.
Ones I’m talking about are yellow in color with a steel bushing in them. NOT just a piece of rubber that the bolt goes thru.

The strap is suppose to lay flat on the bushing that your hook is stuck on. That is the way that model trailer is.

milemark_714 wrote:

The bow is too high in the front.The strap should be in a straight line from winch to bow eye.The winch looks like it can’t go any higher.Ideally,drop the front of boat,and the winch stand can be tilted down.Hard to see what the whole set-up on the trailer looks like.

Can the winch stand be moved a little towards the tongue?It almost looks like the rear support rollers/bunks are too low.Boat should be fairly level when fully loaded on trailer.I’ll bet that is a bear to winch it on,with all that pressure on the flat guide roller?Winch strap should be in a straight line from bow eye to winch drum when loading.

Thanks for the reply. I agree, the bow does seem too high to me. Unfortunately there is a crossbar that limits the angle of the bow. But as you said, I could drop the bow a bit if I could raise the rear rollers. I’ve attached a picture of what my trailer looks like. The only difference is there are no front rollers near the front crossbar (I may add them).

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   trlr.png
   

I wonder if you could mount a roller like this on the winch stand, and give the strap a chance to pull straight from the bow eye?

http://www.etrailer.com/Boat-Trailer-Parts/CE-Smith/CE32003G.html?feed=npn&gclid=CLfvsOLVztECFViewAodLLcGCw

HRG

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   winch-full-1.jpg
   

Just move your winch. Right now the bolts holding the winch are also holding the upper half of the winch post. Remove the winch, add new bolts to hold the winch post in position, them remount the winch using the slot in the upper half of the winch post. You may want to use new bolts, washers and nuts, for all of this.

The only issue might be enough clearance for cranking the winch handle.

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   winch-full-2.jpg
   

Huntindave wrote:

Just move your winch. Right now the bolts holding the winch are also holding the upper half of the winch post. Remove the winch, add new bolts to hold the winch post in position, them remount the winch using the slot in the upper half of the winch post. You may want to use new bolts, washers and nuts, for all of this.

The only issue might be enough clearance for cranking the winch handle.

You’re all over it. That’s what I was thinking. I think I’ll have enough clearance for the handle but not by much. The trailer may not be set up exactly right (i.e. bow’s a little high) but I’ll deal with that later maybe. Thanks for the help.

In addition to moving the winch up as shown in the last picture it might be beneficial to raise the roller position up above the bow eyelet a bit also. From the shorelander diagram it seems like the part that the winch mount to is two piece and one part slides inside the other of you loosen the bolts. This might give you a bit more clearance to get at the bow eye but might also require moving the winch post forward on the trailer tongue or adjusting the tilt of the post.

Thanks a lot for the responses guys. I’ll follow up with some pictures when I get done.