How to Use a Skids & Rollers for a Trailer

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Albert Hedgepeth with Expert Village. Today we're going to talk a little bit about trailer maintenance. Let's talk about skids and rollers. Skids and rollers help pull the load and hold the load on the trailer. As you can see, these skids here actually have a gripping pattern. What that's going to do is once you've actually pulled the load onto the trailer, that?s going to help grip the load itself. Back here in the back, you've got carpet. What you want to look for on this while you're maintaining your trailer is to make sure that the carpet has a little bit of padding on it and that its not ripped down to the bare wood. That's going to help you get the load onto the trailer easier and help with the aesthetics of the trailer itself. Another thing you're going to want to look at whenever you're looking at these skids is how they're bolted on. You're going to want to make sure that these bolts are not rusted out. If they're rusted out, the skids can become flimsy and can actually break off and again, the majority of the weight of the load is actually resting on these skids. They're also there to help you guide whatever you're moving onto the trailer onto it. These skids are really essential part of the trailer itself. If the bolts start to get where they're rusting like this, you should probably go ahead and replace them since they are really holding a lot of the weight. Another thing that you want to thing about if your trailer doesn't have basic skids like this, is the rollers. The rollers should be able to roll freely. This trailer doesn't need rollers because of its design, but if your trailer does have rollers and they aren't moving freely, its just going to inhibit pulling your load onto the trailer. Making sure that you go ahead and keep your skids clean will keep you safe on the road and keep your loads securely fastened and help you with loading material onto the trailer easily."