A couple years ago I bought a 1994 Kingston TB Deluxe 2 horse bumper pull trailer. For the most part, it’s in fabulous shape. I’ve used it maybe 4-6 times each year to change barns, go for the occasional trail hack and a couple low key shows. This year I’ll be towing a lot more, taking several client horses to clinics and shows further away (think 3-4 hours one way for many of them).
I just dropped it off at a local trailer dealership to have them do an inspection on it and to see if they could do a few extra things for me. It pulls great but after taking a ride in the back of it to get the horse’s point of view, I realized how noisy it was back there. I want to have the dealership replace the door seals on the escape doors, top dutch doors and dressing room door to start, but I’m also trying to figure out what to do with the divider and butt bars.
I figured out that the divider causes a lot of the noise. It’s a wooden divider with nylon covered padding on top and a metal pin that secures to the floor. The floor pin has gotten warped over time and it no longer fits in the hole to secure it, so the butt bars do the “securing” when they are up. It’s a LOT of clanking around over anything but perfectly smooth asphalt (you’d have better luck finding a herd of unicorns where I live than finding smooth roads.) Has anyone ever straight up replaced butt bars? Or rubbed coated where the metal meets to minimize the noise?
I’m also thinking about completely swapping out the divider. It’s old, wooden and I’d be happier with no wood and no need to secure it to the floor. Anyone done this? Did you take one from another trailer, buy a new one from a trailer parts dealer, fabricated it yourself or had a metalworker fabricate you one? Please share.
Last thing I really want to do is take care of the interior rust. The trailer is a two-tone silver aluminum skin with navy accents on the steel frame, a pretty typical Kingston color combination from that time period. The navy is where there’s rust. I have the tools to buff it out, the problem is matching the color…no Rustoleum or similar product comes in the color I need! It’s always too bright and it would look like a patchwork quilt. Has anyone ever had a custom paint for this purpose made up? Where did you get it from? I’ve thought about auto dealers, paint stores, etc.
I will be asking the trailer dealership these questions too, but they are not a horse trailer dealership: they do mostly flat-bed trailers, snowmobile trailers, etc, but inspect and do work on horse trailers.
