In the beginning, there was rust.. quite a lot of it actually... and wet rot, mold, warped wood you know.. the usual you expect to find when you purchase a gently abused trailer of any kind. But first, a bit more on the trailer! After some digging on the part of the former owner a VIN number finally materialized and in turn was converted into a trailer plate on my part. I've come to the conclusion that most people live in a state of blissful ignorance. His "198x" trailer (note the quotes here) actually turned out to be a 1969 Otto, formerly a tent trailer. Rusty? Yes indeed.. and rotted out in spots, but the frame is sound and so are the springs and tires, so the important parts are all there. Time to start some wood destruction!
First off however, here's the trailer itself in all it's green and black glory :P Not so shabby for $200, but it needs some attention desperately. The sides are heading to the trash heap and so is the decking. What I'll put in their place is 2x6 flooring to the edges of the frame, then bolt in 4 adjustable corner posts and attach the side rails through those. The end result will be a trailer that can have any side removed, but won't have any of the rust and rot. Need to change a floorboard? 4 screws and you're there. Not a big deal, and it'll look much nicer too.
Next up we have the tires! Rusty, but only on the surface. The bearings and seals are in decent condition too, so the important thing here was to add a set of bearing buddies onto them. The buddies are these little chrome and copper caps with an expandable grease seal and an external nipple underneath a rubber end cap. It makes it 10 times easier to grease the bearings, and renders the innards completely waterproof. Additionally, your grease stays wrapped around the bearings and can't ooze out.. for $4 for a pair, what's to complain about?
$9 later for a shiny new class 2 coupler, I'm starting to wonder just how much of a cheapass the previous owner was. The coupler he had on there was an inch too wide, so he just used longer bolts.. like.. 7 inches on a 3 inch coupler.. :( To top it off, the bolts were not only tearing through the coupler, but were only grade 2.. 64k psi, suitable for picnic tables and deck rails.. Nice.. $2 later and we have grade 8 alloy bolts for a quarter million psi shear strength. $6 for a coupler lock and $2 for a trailer ball I cut off and locked in place. Makes it _very_ hard to steal the trailer.
$19 for a piece of 3x3x3/16 angle iron at 6 feet long. Where the stabilizer bars angled into the trailer there were some very deep gouges cut into them. Something had been there in the past and someone had taken a cutting torch to them to remove it. One long piece of unstrained steel, with 6 one inch grade 8 bolts holding it to the frame and the entire nose is stiffened up and ready to go. Now to attend to the rest of it....
Here's the trailer deck currently, and ugly doesn't even begin to describe it. The top layer of wood is OSB and it's rotting away to nothing in fairly short order. To top it off, whoever added it to the trailer didn't even bother to clean off the layer underneath, they just slapped it on top and bolted it down. I keep hitting fairly sizable rocks with my saws as I start to get it sliced off, and I've found a half inch of assorted detritus sandwiched between the layers. What a disgusting mess. However, if you do the tally, so far the price is still right. I even picked up the light package I need for the unit on sale, so I have a reasonable majority of the pieces I need already in place. Current tally is Trailer - 200, Lights - 20, steel -20, misc bolts and other items - 30, plate - 110... so we're sitting at $380 not including my labour.. I still need to get the planks for the sides and floor, some paint, reflective markers and a trailer light, but the majority of the expense is finished. Worth the cost? Well, peek on the internet at some point. The trailer is a class 3 suspension and the deck itself is 77"x114". Try searching Kijiji.ca for trailers in the Calgary area... there's a 5"x8" with plywood decking for $950 (plus 110 for the plate, that's a set cost)... so $1200? I think I'm still a long ways ahead, and I'll have a better trailer in the end.
First off however, here's the trailer itself in all it's green and black glory :P Not so shabby for $200, but it needs some attention desperately. The sides are heading to the trash heap and so is the decking. What I'll put in their place is 2x6 flooring to the edges of the frame, then bolt in 4 adjustable corner posts and attach the side rails through those. The end result will be a trailer that can have any side removed, but won't have any of the rust and rot. Need to change a floorboard? 4 screws and you're there. Not a big deal, and it'll look much nicer too.
Next up we have the tires! Rusty, but only on the surface. The bearings and seals are in decent condition too, so the important thing here was to add a set of bearing buddies onto them. The buddies are these little chrome and copper caps with an expandable grease seal and an external nipple underneath a rubber end cap. It makes it 10 times easier to grease the bearings, and renders the innards completely waterproof. Additionally, your grease stays wrapped around the bearings and can't ooze out.. for $4 for a pair, what's to complain about?
$9 later for a shiny new class 2 coupler, I'm starting to wonder just how much of a cheapass the previous owner was. The coupler he had on there was an inch too wide, so he just used longer bolts.. like.. 7 inches on a 3 inch coupler.. :( To top it off, the bolts were not only tearing through the coupler, but were only grade 2.. 64k psi, suitable for picnic tables and deck rails.. Nice.. $2 later and we have grade 8 alloy bolts for a quarter million psi shear strength. $6 for a coupler lock and $2 for a trailer ball I cut off and locked in place. Makes it _very_ hard to steal the trailer.
$19 for a piece of 3x3x3/16 angle iron at 6 feet long. Where the stabilizer bars angled into the trailer there were some very deep gouges cut into them. Something had been there in the past and someone had taken a cutting torch to them to remove it. One long piece of unstrained steel, with 6 one inch grade 8 bolts holding it to the frame and the entire nose is stiffened up and ready to go. Now to attend to the rest of it....
Here's the trailer deck currently, and ugly doesn't even begin to describe it. The top layer of wood is OSB and it's rotting away to nothing in fairly short order. To top it off, whoever added it to the trailer didn't even bother to clean off the layer underneath, they just slapped it on top and bolted it down. I keep hitting fairly sizable rocks with my saws as I start to get it sliced off, and I've found a half inch of assorted detritus sandwiched between the layers. What a disgusting mess. However, if you do the tally, so far the price is still right. I even picked up the light package I need for the unit on sale, so I have a reasonable majority of the pieces I need already in place. Current tally is Trailer - 200, Lights - 20, steel -20, misc bolts and other items - 30, plate - 110... so we're sitting at $380 not including my labour.. I still need to get the planks for the sides and floor, some paint, reflective markers and a trailer light, but the majority of the expense is finished. Worth the cost? Well, peek on the internet at some point. The trailer is a class 3 suspension and the deck itself is 77"x114". Try searching Kijiji.ca for trailers in the Calgary area... there's a 5"x8" with plywood decking for $950 (plus 110 for the plate, that's a set cost)... so $1200? I think I'm still a long ways ahead, and I'll have a better trailer in the end.
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