A little background first. This trailer use to belong to my father in law, he passed away last month 79 years old, US Marine Sniper for 6 years. I think it is somewhere around 40 years old. He use to work at DuPont and this is where he got it from. It has a T frame that makes up the outer frame. From what I can tell it was made to carry some type of equipment on it, possibly a large generator and it bolted to the T part of the frame. He had someone to convert it to a small trailer.
Once I got it into the shop I flipped it over to see what needed to go. I don't believe I have ever seen a makeshift axle like this before. I guess the tires ( which have a two piece wheel with a tube inside ) is the suspension. Now I know why it bounced a lot. lol
The axle was placed center of the trailer, and would dance for you if you didn't load it just right. Time to get to cutting.
I best friend who loves to forge started drooling when he saw the solid steel axles. I have never seen anyone build an axle like this.
At this point I haven't decided if I was going to keep the wood floor or remove it. So I decided to get the axle setup. I moved the axle back 12" which put it at 4' from the front and 2' off of the rear. This add some tongue weight plus I'm adding 24" to the tongue making it 4"
Just wanted to get an idea of where it would sit. Back to cleaning up
Getting the axle square to the frame, along with some other measurements to double check.
The axle is installed with a spring over for lift. Bottom of frame sanded best I could and coated twice. Ready to put the 35-12.50 x 15" tires on and flip it over.
Time to extend the tongue. The 2'-8" piece that was on it is a 2X2 .250 wall so I added a 2-1/2 x 2-1/2 .250 to it so I could use one of my 3 axis hitch I built last year on the trailer.
I decided to take it out for a pull to make sure it tracks straight and pulls good. Didn't want to get to far encase I needed to tweak anything.
It pulls and tracks great. Now to back back and remove the rails and the floor.
This is a good look at the T frame
I'm going to add two more cross braces to it. And maybe run a tongue out the back so I can add a receiver.
I picked up 20ft of 1-1/2 x 1-1/2 .120 wall square stock on the way home today. I've got to get some more material tomorrow. Still need to do a lot of clean up on the outer part of the frame before I start the floor and the rails. More to come in a few days........
Once I got it into the shop I flipped it over to see what needed to go. I don't believe I have ever seen a makeshift axle like this before. I guess the tires ( which have a two piece wheel with a tube inside ) is the suspension. Now I know why it bounced a lot. lol
The axle was placed center of the trailer, and would dance for you if you didn't load it just right. Time to get to cutting.
I best friend who loves to forge started drooling when he saw the solid steel axles. I have never seen anyone build an axle like this.
At this point I haven't decided if I was going to keep the wood floor or remove it. So I decided to get the axle setup. I moved the axle back 12" which put it at 4' from the front and 2' off of the rear. This add some tongue weight plus I'm adding 24" to the tongue making it 4"
Just wanted to get an idea of where it would sit. Back to cleaning up
Getting the axle square to the frame, along with some other measurements to double check.
The axle is installed with a spring over for lift. Bottom of frame sanded best I could and coated twice. Ready to put the 35-12.50 x 15" tires on and flip it over.
Time to extend the tongue. The 2'-8" piece that was on it is a 2X2 .250 wall so I added a 2-1/2 x 2-1/2 .250 to it so I could use one of my 3 axis hitch I built last year on the trailer.
I decided to take it out for a pull to make sure it tracks straight and pulls good. Didn't want to get to far encase I needed to tweak anything.
It pulls and tracks great. Now to back back and remove the rails and the floor.
This is a good look at the T frame
I'm going to add two more cross braces to it. And maybe run a tongue out the back so I can add a receiver.
I picked up 20ft of 1-1/2 x 1-1/2 .120 wall square stock on the way home today. I've got to get some more material tomorrow. Still need to do a lot of clean up on the outer part of the frame before I start the floor and the rails. More to come in a few days........
