NATO hitch

The latch that locks the top of the hook is very stiff. So stiff in fact it needs a mallet to move the lever. I dribbled some 3 in 1 oil down the joints that lead to the pin. I started working the lever back and forth. It was really stiff. I just kept dribbling oil and working the pin. Little by little the pin eased up. Twenty minutes later the lever could be moved with some resistance but fairly easily.

Then done I fitted the safety pin. The pin has a chain to stop it getting lost. On the centre of the hitch pin pivot is a nut that traps a tag onto which the chains attach. There is a chain attached to the "R" clip swivel locking lever pin. I managed to get both the "R" clip and the hitch pin chain to fit onto the same tag. A waft of black paint over the chain to keep the rust at bay and the job was complete.

Marine Blue

Yesterday I went up to Paddocks at Matlock. Click HERE for their website. After standing for twenty minutes in a drafty, breeze block spares department I finally got served and took home a litre tin of marine blue paint. They did not have the instrument panel screws I wanted.

On Sunday I found time the paint the outside of the trailer with the blue paint from Paddocks. I fitted the number plate and managed to blue paint all over the back of my hands. Next I took the masking tape off the lights and other things taped up. I had a look round the trailer an spotted that the black paint was a bit thin here and there. The did not have any of the original black paint so I used up the spray Hammerright to touch with.

I soaked the trailer leg pins with 3 in1 oils and worked them loose. They fit easily in the holes. Next was to hook up the retaining chains that will stop me losing the trailer legs pins....I hope. Then just a waft of spray paint to cover the bare metal on the chains.