No, really, I couldn't think of a better name. But I finally decided to start a build thread. Mostly to motivate myself, but sharing is fun too 
A while back I purchased a trailer off of craigslist for a few hundred dollars. This is what it looked like when I brought it home:
Yes, it has (had) a gate at both ends. Half of the roof also slid forward. It was kinds of novel in a way, but really a lot of metal was to come off it. I decided to work on the tongue first and crawl around under it to see what was what. Then, I hit it with the pressure washer. Oops.
The tongue and hitch worked out well. I used a chemical paint stripper from Home Depot to get it back to bare metal. Then I found some paint. These coats are just a base coat to protect the metal.
Next I drilled the light mounts out of the "bumper". Still not sure if I should leave it on, or cut it off. The housing, even though they were aluminum, were very corroded and unsalvageable. Which is just as well I suppose.
Then I set about removing the front and rear "gates". Not only has this part been a royal PIMA, but it has also consumed a lot of time. I have been trying to remove things without damaging the utility box. Progress is slow ... very slow.
Finally, got it stripped down enough today to start prep for actually building it up again.
This thing is heavy. Or at least it was. At this point I am just about at 300 lbs of steel removed. The raised rack alone was close to 100 pounds. The frame is actually 3 layers. There are two layers of steel tubing that is the actual frame, and a third layer that is raised about 8 1/2 inches off the frame. The utility box is attached to the raised subframe. Most of the welds are extremely strong, just very very ugly. This trailer was made by a farmer, for whatever he thought he needed it for. This thing is a built like a tank, and pulls like it.
On the upside, it is much lighter (for now) and it does pull very strait. I do need to reset the axel just a bit more forward to center the wheels in the wheel well. Speaking of axels, I am looking to do the "flip" to get another two inches. The trailer also has a "drop axel". That is the axel sits about 4 inches below the center of the wheel. Should I keep this or just replace it? It seems to be in good shape with no issues that a little (or a lot) of TLC won't fix. Or I suppose I could keep the axel above the leaf springs and flip the whole axel. Maybe? I really have no idea for this part of the project. I have a lot of other things to get worked out before I get to that.
Anyway, this is my project. It is going slower than I thought it would, but I wasn't planning on the extra hours at work either.
A while back I purchased a trailer off of craigslist for a few hundred dollars. This is what it looked like when I brought it home:
Yes, it has (had) a gate at both ends. Half of the roof also slid forward. It was kinds of novel in a way, but really a lot of metal was to come off it. I decided to work on the tongue first and crawl around under it to see what was what. Then, I hit it with the pressure washer. Oops.
The tongue and hitch worked out well. I used a chemical paint stripper from Home Depot to get it back to bare metal. Then I found some paint. These coats are just a base coat to protect the metal.
Next I drilled the light mounts out of the "bumper". Still not sure if I should leave it on, or cut it off. The housing, even though they were aluminum, were very corroded and unsalvageable. Which is just as well I suppose.
Then I set about removing the front and rear "gates". Not only has this part been a royal PIMA, but it has also consumed a lot of time. I have been trying to remove things without damaging the utility box. Progress is slow ... very slow.
Finally, got it stripped down enough today to start prep for actually building it up again.
This thing is heavy. Or at least it was. At this point I am just about at 300 lbs of steel removed. The raised rack alone was close to 100 pounds. The frame is actually 3 layers. There are two layers of steel tubing that is the actual frame, and a third layer that is raised about 8 1/2 inches off the frame. The utility box is attached to the raised subframe. Most of the welds are extremely strong, just very very ugly. This trailer was made by a farmer, for whatever he thought he needed it for. This thing is a built like a tank, and pulls like it.
On the upside, it is much lighter (for now) and it does pull very strait. I do need to reset the axel just a bit more forward to center the wheels in the wheel well. Speaking of axels, I am looking to do the "flip" to get another two inches. The trailer also has a "drop axel". That is the axel sits about 4 inches below the center of the wheel. Should I keep this or just replace it? It seems to be in good shape with no issues that a little (or a lot) of TLC won't fix. Or I suppose I could keep the axel above the leaf springs and flip the whole axel. Maybe? I really have no idea for this part of the project. I have a lot of other things to get worked out before I get to that.
Anyway, this is my project. It is going slower than I thought it would, but I wasn't planning on the extra hours at work either.