New old trailer project

[craigwanderer]

Hi everyone,

I've had this trailer for maybe six months now, but I haven't yet done anything to it apart from some rust repairs and a quick spray of OD on the repaired sections.

Been a bit busy with work and I'm not likely to get much done to the trailer over the next few months either. With that in mind, consider this a brainstorming thread rather than a build thread.

The trailer as received has the following features.

- A big, heavy duty sheetmetal lid with a hatch on either side. Nasty, creaky, rattly and (too) heavy.

- Drop down tailgate

- Internal water tank under the floor with plimbing for a manual or electric pump - I haven't tried it out for reasons you'll see later.

- Very long drawbar with a tray bolted to it - the tray is made from shelving and wire mesh - dodgy, but it fits my mil space-case with a jerrycan either side perfectly, so it has potential.

- Little-bitty springs

- 5-stud hubs currently fitted with old sedan (holden commodore) rims and tyres for transport - I have a six-stud BJ40 Cruiser.

- Rail welded to the side which belies it's domestic general purpose trailer history. This rail is designed to tie tarps on with and is pretty standard here in Aus rather than metal loops or hooks that you see overseas.

- The frame/chassis has been lifted by the addition of some (open-ended) rectangular tube.

- Badly messed up wiring - the PO's German Shepherd actually got bored one day and chewed the wiring out of the lights. Up front the wiring and plugs are OK, but will all be replaced.

-Mud guards are old, bent and dodgy and secured to the vehicle by a couple of home made brackets and by welding to the rail I mentioned above.

- The trailer has a spare tyre bracket on the left hand side made from an old hub "trimmed" down and welded to a support which is welded to the frame.

The trailer has been off the road for over a decade.

Here are a couple of pics:

What would YOU do with this thing?

I'll post up some options I have a little later.

Cheers

 

[titanpat57]

Hi Craigwanderer

Here's how I see it---looks like a great start, yea, it needs some things, but unless the pictures don't reveal the truth, I think with a few corrections, you may have one hell of a nice little trailer there.



The trailer as received has the following features.

- A big, heavy duty sheetmetal lid with a hatch on either side. Nasty, creaky, rattly and (too) heavy. So make a newer, lighter one

- Drop down tailgate Niiiiiccceee...
- Internal water tank under the floor with plimbing for a manual or electric pump - I haven't tried it out for reasons you'll see later. ok..well it's a start..

- Very long drawbar with a tray bolted to it - the tray is made from shelving and wire mesh - dodgy, but it fits my mil space-case with a jerrycan either side perfectly, so it has potential. I'd platform off that whole tongue..that would be the backbone of the build ..i.e. home for a new water tank, jerry cans, cooler

- Little-bitty springs see below.....
- 5-stud hubs currently fitted with old sedan (holden commodore) rims and tyres for transport - I have a six-stud BJ40 Cruiser. Rip that crap out of there and put longer, beefier springs with a new brake axle and hubs to match that beautiful 40

- Rail welded to the side which belies it's domestic general purpose trailer history. This rail is designed to tie tarps on with and is pretty standard here in Aus rather than metal loops or hooks that you see overseas. If you have a covered lid do need rails?

- The frame/chassis has been lifted by the addition of some (open-ended) rectangular tube. What's a little lift between mates?

- Badly messed up wiring - the PO's German Shepherd actually got bored one day and chewed the wiring out of the lights. Up front the wiring and plugs are OK, but will all be replaced. Again..go from the front to the rear and replace, you don't need any headaches out on the road or trail...or the friggin outback for that matter!

-Mud guards are old, bent and dodgy and secured to the vehicle by a couple of home made brackets and by welding to the rail I mentioned above. Cut off all the homemade crap, make the way you want it

- The trailer has a spare tyre bracket on the left hand side made from an old hub "trimmed" down and welded to a support which is welded to the frame. See above...

The trailer has been off the road for over a decade. No big deal...plenty of good trailers get resurrected and reformed after much longer service dates than that. If the underneath is rotted and decayed..thats another story.


Sounds to me you got yourself a project mate..but not to worry, all it takes is time and money...and with a little ingenutiy, and some good luck, you'll have a great platform when all is said and done

Best of luck with it,

Pat

 

[craigwanderer]

Hey thanks for the reply Pat. Seems we're on the same wavelength

The trailer needs to be convertible between being a general purpose utilitytrailer and a camping trailer.

Here's the plan so far -

1. Lid - s***can the existing one - it's a fully-lockable tradesman's lid for a work trailer so I should be able to offload it and maybe even spin a little profit. I got the trailer for peanuts. I am thinking that a lid with a steel framework covered in aluminium sheet would be a lot lighter. The lid will have racks built in to accommodate a RTT platform.

2. The watertank - this is where I need some advice... The tank is approximately 200 litres and sits in a sealed aluminium box under the bed of the trailer. The PO unfortunately appears to have welded the top of the box shut so I haven't yet been able to examine the state of the tank itself. I use no more than 3 x 5 gallon water jerrycans out in the wilds, and my existing pump setup is tailored to using them. I prefer not to keep all my eggs in the one basket when it comes to water, making the under-bed tank in the trailer redundant.

Now here's the thing... I wish to incorporate a battery bank into this trailer and I was thinking that the water tank box would be a good place to mount the batteries. I've thunk out a water tight ventilation system for the batts so there shouldn't be too many problem in that regard. Is there any compelling reason why 2 or 3 deep cycle batteries and their associated gear securely mounted under the trailer bed would be a bad idea?

3. The rails along the sides of the trailer - these mess with my ki when it comes to locating places to mount jerrycans and propane cylinders. So they're coming off. The problem is that for most of the year, the trailer will be used as an open top utility trailer and having places to tie off ropes can be helpful. Looking at the various ex-mil trailers in this forum I see that many of them have a hook arrangement along the sides of the trailer. That'll do me so I'll weld some hooks along the sides of mine instead of the rail.

4. The hubs - Yep, 5 stud sedan hubs to be banished to the dumpster and cheap as chips six stud cruiser-compatible have been located and purchased. Just need time to fit them.

5. The dodgy spare carrier hanging off the left side of the trailer - scrapped completely and a new one fabricated for the drawbar - placement will depend on what I end up doing with the space on the drawbar itself. Haven't decided yet.

6. guards/fenders - I wouldn't mind putting a couple of FJ40 fenders on instead. I have no idea how they'd look let alone how they'd work, so I'll see how that goes. I do like what some of you blokes have done with your M101 Canadian trailer fenders. i.e. an angled horizontal piece to help stop rocks, logs, etc from ripping the fender off.

That's about it for the moment, so I'll update the thread after I've made some actual progress on the trailer.

Cheers.