Will salt water be bad on a boat trailer that has road armor on it. Want to take a few trip when the weather cools. I plan on a complete wash down after fishing in salt water. Your thoughts.

What is road armor?

It is a rubber like substance on the trailer where the trailer doesn't show rock chips. It's coated all around.

If it's a tube trailer, it's toast.
Anything water can possibly touch will rust. No amount of washing will cure it.

yep

You can do ok with galvanized trailers if you rinse them thoroughly.

Mine is still completely rust free after several years. I usually have my sons rinse the boat and trailer real well when we get back, and then I do it again the next day.

And...
There is a big difference in salinity in different parts of the coast. The LLM is 100X saltier than Galveston. Which is way more than in the marsh in Louisiana.

I agree with Pat Goff: RUST NEVER SLEEPS! You can rinse, rinse, and rinse, but if your has any steel, rust will eventually win the battle. Galvanizing is just a stop-gap, prolonging the inevitable. Leaf springs are the first to go! There's a reason aluminium trailers with torsion axles are so popular.

Island Jim

I had a trailer for my old boat I took down the coast just a few times and fresh all the rest. It never rusted. In fact it's still in my backyard. The boat and motor long since dead and gone. I keep saying I'm going to use it for something.

PS: It's a 1973 trailer for a 1973 Starcraft

Never had that level of proof, but I always thought a dip in a freshwater lake after a saltwater trip would help get all the salt out better than rinsing with a hose could. I'll have to remember your experience and plan more freshwater trips shortly after saltwater.

Thanks for posting.

what i do is after you get it out of the salt, the very next day take it to the lake nearest you and pull it in and out of the water, a bunch of times, with the boat off, and when you get the boat off, go run it and rinse the salt out of everything

A painted tube trailer has zero chance of living after a dunking in the brine. Channel might last a bit longer. I've had way too many souls try to trade in a rust bucket after "one" trip to the coast.

Saltwater boats are different for a reason.

I'm planning a trip over to Hackberry for a couple of days. I sprayed the trailer down with CRC rust inhibitor. My guide friend in Florida said it will do good.

One thing that might help tube trailers is to drill two or three large holes in the bottom surface of the tubes so that when you do a fresh water dunk, the water can get in and out quicker maybe giving you more of a flushing action.