My favorite part.. Makin plans !
The big change will be the sides. Instead of 2 ft high removable ( and floppy) sides with heavy planks. Which reminds me … I took 500 lbs of rotten wood to the landfill today, from the trailer. YES I have to put the deck back.. But it won’t weigh that much. Oh ya… sides.. I’m going to have welded 12 ” high sides. The same height as the fenders. Just like this:
This was an 18 ft trailer I built from an old travel trailer. This is what I like .. Adds strength to the frame. And I think the new trailer suits this better than tall sides. Then we need a wind gate or ramp, tail gate.. call it what you want.. Look at the 12 ft ATV trailer I bought new, had a great one. It hinged 190 degrees to lay flat on the deck for when you traveled empty.
This worked ! Bye the way we like to call these wind gates because the mesh lets the wind pass through. Ya ! Notice this trailer had the low rails too. I never thought they had to be higher. These are tried and tested things that I know work well.
I’m starting to collect the parts and pieces I need for this trailer build. One other big thing this trailer needs is new tires.
Those are winter car tires on there ! Nope.. Not sure I want to explain why trailer tires are better on a trailer .. Lets just do the right thing shall we. Now these 15 ” tires take up a lot of room in the fenders. I’m concerned they will rub if you put weight in the trailer. Soooo I have ordered a whole new set (five so I have a good spare) of 14 ” wheels and tires, with galvanized spoke rims. That should work good and look good too. The tongue of the trailer is quite long.. It adds a woppin 66″ ( 5-1/2 ft) to the length of the trailer. Making it 17- 1/2 ft from hitch to bumper.
That’s a lot of extra space! I’m wanting to claim a bit of that for more deck space. 20 ” more to be exact. The box you see ( in the correct position) will be right in front of the extended deck, and will hold the winch, battery charger. And if the battery fits too , great ! Otherwise I will make a battery holder in front.. My 6 ft ruler marks the front of the deck. There’s lot’s of room. Plus I’ll get a different jack and move it to the mounting hole in the new A frame hitch.
Today the new wheels arrived ! They are going to look very sharp with the color I have now decided on.
These are 205/75R /14 Radial trailer tires with a 1680 lb load range C- rating. That’s 6720 lbs for the 4 tires. The axles and springs are rated for 7000 lbs. The trailer weighed in at approximately 1900 lbs BEFORE I removed the 500 lbs of wood… so a good guess for the finished weight would be in the 1700 lb + or- a bit. That puts how much you can load the trailer is 5000 lbs. COOL ! Good trailer..
Now did I say something about color ? Yes .. I’ve put a lot of thought into that subject. And I want it to be classy. I have settled on a dark red. Tremclad has a red called “Regal Red” and I like it.. Plus I can buy it right here in town.
Here’s a swatch. All the ideas are falling in to place and I haven’t found a reason to change anything yet.. Except ! As a bonus I was digging through my stashes and I found an A frame jack. In working order.. but it’s missing the foot. I need to make a foot for the travel trailer too.. so I can later.
So I cleaned and greased it and gave it a paint job. Works perfectly !
I’ve found a source for a bit of metal. Good trailer building metal. Some angle iron and 2 ” square tube. But I need to go get it an hour away. Therefore I need the new trailer… so I wired up some temporary (but new) lights
And I installed the new wheels.
To go down one size to a 14″ wheel was a good choice. I now have a comfortable amount of clearance in the fenders AND it only lowered the trailer by 1- 1/2 ” . And that’s okay ! I got to test the new wheels out ! Went to Just north of Calgary to but some good useful steel .
This trailer was proving it’s usefulness … carrying 20 ft lengths of angle and 2″ square and one 3″ c- channel. No problems ! So the trailer is in the shop, and I’ve got lots of metal to work with. Between the trailer and the 20ft metal there’s not a lot of room to get around. I’m going to move the lift table over a foot and a bit. That should help.. Plus I’ll cut the metal into the sizes I need and the rest I’ll cut in half for storing . And then the building will start after the Jeeps are out of the shop. SOON.