T&T: Casters.

[Ken Bloomfield]

John,
In the past, I replaced the wheels on my marquipt stairs with wheels that I
bought at Harbor Freight.  However, as you point out, the mounting post was
different.  My solution was to take the wheel and the axle from the Harbor
Freight wheels and replace the wheel and axle in the Marquipt stair with that.
Had to do a little gimmicking with the axle hole in the Marquipt wheel
housing, but it was not too hard.  Worked well for many years till I was waked
enormously while away from the boat in Chattanooga TN, and returned to find my
bottom step utterly  ruined.  Had to buy a new bottom stair that came with
casters and wheels.  Only $500+ later I was rolling again.  Now, at the dock,
I have a rubberized backing floormat on the dock surface that the wheels run
on, and I will slowly wear out the mat rather than the wheels.  One positive
thing out of this is that the wheels on the new stair are truly stainless
steel whereas the originals I don't believe were.  Also, these new wheels have
some very hard gray plastic as compared to the relatively soft black material
that the old ones had.  It was rather amazing to me how rapidly the old wheels
worn down, given that they hardly seem to move much on the dock.
Cheers,
Ken Bloomfield
M/V Tellico Lady, 50' Marine Trader
Maryville, TN

John W. Pierron wrote:
I'm looking for a source other than MarQuip for a set of four replacement
caster assemblies for MarQuip boarding steps.