Hobie scupper cart wheel upgrade

I have a pair of Outbacks that came with the original scupper carts with old style white plastic wheels.  After using it the first time, one of the wheels disintegrated.  I guess it got brittle with age.  I called Hobie and found that this wheel design was replaced several years ago with a more durable design (the current grey 6 spoke design on the basic Hobie scupper carts available now).  The wheels are $22 each so to update the two carts I was looking at $88.  As a broke student with a bit of ingenuity, I figured that has to be a better way. 

I took a trip to Harbor Freight and found wheels for $6 that are much more durable than what Hobie is selling.  The original wheels had a cheap plastic set screw that held the wheel hub to the axle shaft.  I got around this by simply drilling a small hole, putting in a stainless hitch pin, a nylon washer and stainless washer on each end of the wheel.  I'm sure I could have gotten by just fine without the nylon washer in retrospect.  It's easy to break down and stow in the front hatch still and works like a charm.  It's not great on soft sand, but the original wheels weren't either.  Besides that, the only negative is that the HF wheels are a bit heavier than the originals but in a boat that can take 400 lbs., I'm not worried about that. 

The original cart had a small pad on the cross bar where the boat rests so I replaced it with a piece of pool noodle to distribute the weight a bit better. 

Take a look and feel free to plagiarize any of this if it works for you.  Tight lines!

I also switched to the same hitch pins when the provided wheel retainers provided proved to come off easily & eventually broke. Recently I lost one of my hitch pins when it got caught on some trailside obstruction & fell off......& then another one when I removed it & it fell in under some rocks & seaweed at the beach. 

After those experiences I switched from the hitch pins to some large snap pins like those on a snap swivel only bigger......& carry a spare.