Homemade trailer progress (08-31-08)

[cactusjack]

Alright. I haven't had much time to spend on the trailer the past couple of weeks, but I am using the 3-day weekend to catch up. Here's what it looks like today:


Now, before you say "Gee CJ, it looks the same as before". Here's what's different: I narrowed the overall width of the trailer by about 4-1/2", lowered it about 2", and extended the tongue by 13".

I used a chop saw to cut a 4" chunk out of the center of the axle. Not having access to welding equipment, I used a 12" piece of 1.25" 14 gauge perforated tubing to rejoin the two halves. The tubing fit perfectly inside the axle. Drilled a few holes, and used some grade-8 3/8x2" bolts to connect everything up. If you look closely, you can just barely see where the cut is.



Here's the axle components before I assembled them:



I removed one of the two leaf springs on each side to soften the ride and mounted the axle above the spring, rather than below it, thus lowering the deck by about 2":



Extending the tongue was simple. I moved the center crossmember forward to another set of mounting holes, which added another 13" in tongue length. This puts the coupler-to-axle distance within the 1.5 to 2 x trailer width range, which is ideal.

Here's a picture of the trailer as it was orignally assembled, to compare with the first picture in this thread:



Next, is wiring and mounting the decking and cargo box. I'll work on it some tomorrow, but I am going riding in the morning.