I've had great luck with moisture cured urethane paint. POR-15 is the common name brand, but Pettit Rustlok is made specifically for boat trailers, and is usually cheaper. The prep is easy, just grind anything loose off with an electric wire brush on an angle grinder, and then paint over the rough surface rust and well adhered paint flakes. It adheres well to a rough wire brushed rusted surface, but will not adhere at all if there is any oil- in that case the surface needs to be cleaned first. The POR-15 site has lots of good prep information, and the prep chemicals they sell also work well. I've been using this method for a long time, and have never seen rust come back on cars, boat trailers, or the swing keel of my Catalina 22, even after a decade or so of regular saltwater use. I have never tried coal tar epoxy, but I think urethane is more forgiving of still having some rust on the surface, for epoxy it should be sandblasted first ideally. Probably the best thing is to get it professionally sandblasted or chemical dipped and galvanized, but it might cost as much as a new trailer to do that. The Pettit paint has aluminum flakes and looks almost exactly like galvanization, I have a ~30 year old galvanized trailer and just touch it up with Pettit anytime it shows rust. Sincerely, Tyler ----- Original Message ----- From: "For and about Montgomery Sailboats" <montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> To: "For and about Montgomery Sailboats" <montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Sunday, June 3, 2018 5:14:41 PM Subject: M_Boats: Advice Repainting Reburbishing Trailer The Trail-Rite trailer for our 1986 Montgomery 15 has thick (it must have been repainted at least once before we had it), chipped, and peeling paint and spots with surface rust. We'd like to repaint it but wonder what sort of preparation work the old paint would take to get new paint to stick properly at last a long time. Plus it would be good to get the rust off of it. It looks like a lot of work to do entirely ourselves! Can anyone share any experiences, good and bad, repainting old trailers like ours? I can imagine taking off the removable stuff, taking it somewhere and somehow without wheels, having it dipped to remove the old paint, and then sand-blasted, and then repainting it, but that might be a bit more work than the trailer justifies. Thanks! David GrahBishop California