Custom Stainless Wheel Assemblies Saved This Sauk Centre Boat Lift

Here's what we were working with - a Pier Pleasure boat lift out of Sauk Centre, MN with wheel assemblies so far gone that the shafts had worn the mounting holes completely loose. That kind of slop doesn't just make the lift feel sloppy to operate. It puts the whole thing at risk of failing mid-use. The factory parts had run their course, and no off-the-shelf replacement was going to cut it.

So we scrapped the worn-out setup entirely and started from scratch. We laid out all the new plate profiles right on a fresh sheet of stainless steel - you can see the full layout marked out in blue, eight pieces cut from a single sheet with zero wasted material. From there, we machined new shafts to tight tolerances, used a mag drill to bore clean, precise holes through the stainless plate, and TIG welded the shafts in place. Those heat-colored TIG welds are a good sign - that's what proper fusion on stainless looks like.

What makes these better than what came off the lift? First, they're stainless steel - rust isn't a conversation anymore. Second, we built in an adjustable universal mounting system so these assemblies can transfer to a different lift down the road if needed. That kind of forward-thinking design is something you just don't get with factory replacement parts.

This is exactly the kind of work our dock and marine welding service is built for. When a part doesn't exist, or when what exists isn't good enough, we build something better in-house. Full control over the design, the material, and the fit. No compromises.

The lift is back in the water and doing its job. No wobble, no rust, no patchwork fixes that'll need attention again next season. When you build it right the first time, that's the end of the conversation.