"Wingin' it" 4x6-ish Trailer Thread

[nnnnnate]

I bought a few of these tabs today and welded them on the front and rear fender supports then drilled and bolted it all together. I'm pretty happy how sturdy the fender feels and I still need to bolt it to the wall of the tub.



I got the fenders on and welded up the tailgate hinges as well. After getting that done I welded on my strap hooks inside the tub and around the front platform. I was working on grinding down a few things and my ryobi grinder quit working. It had started to sound funny yesterday so I wasn't too surprised about its death. I didn't think I would get as far as I did today so I decided to hooked it up and go for a spin around the block. Seemed to do real well.



I bought a Bosch grinder tonight but I may pick up something else tomorrow at lunch. My tailgate cables and latches should come tomorrow and I can get those installed. After that I plan to grind a bunch and clean the grease off of it before taking it to the swell this weekend with Wasatch Cruisers. This will give me a chance to use it and see if I need to make any changes to it before I paint. When I get back I'll have a few other things to finish up but will get to them next week.

I'm pretty excited to be going on this trip cause I'll have room to take my great dane and also have a place to put my camping gear. Its going to be fun.

 

[BlueWolfFab]

I love my Milwaukee grinder, it comes with a 5 year warranty and I'm going on about 7 years no issues. Just picked up a Milwaukee RO sander too when my black and Decker decided to spit its guts out.

 

[sixstringsteve]

I have a metabo grinder and I couldn't be happier with it. I have abused it and it should have died so many times by now.

I'm a fan of my milwaukee power tools too.

 

[skippy]

I have a metabo grinder and I couldn't be happier with it. I have abused it and it should have died so many times by now.

I'm a fan of my milwaukee power tools too.

Metabos are the best grinders EVER!!! I have a 2 of them and I will probably never buy anything else

 

[nnnnnate]

I've read some pretty great things about Metabos and know that Industrial Supply has them but I'm not sure if I want to spend the coin on one.

 

[jeeper]

Ive had the same ryobi for 5+ years with heavy abuse.. but I am not partial at all. I bought based on price. I do hate the Dewalts though. I don't like the all on or off sliding trigger system..
I like the grinder to turn of when I let go, so when I cut my finger and drop it I don't cut off my toes also

Edit: it looks like most other grinders have the same sliding on/off switch. So maybe I am going to be ryobi partial.

 

[Box Rocket]

Looking really good Nate. Hope you don't ever plan on a bigger tire for it.

 

[sixstringsteve]

hey, at least you won't need trailer brakes now. Just hit a bump and it'll brake for you.

 

[nnnnnate]

So right now and in that pic its setup as SUA. By swapping it back to SOA I get 4" more clearance. I intended to mention that when you guys were giving me feedback the other day but forgot.

As far as grinders go what bugged me the most about the Ryobi was the guard and how much of a pain it was to adjust. The clamp was always in the way so that is the biggest feature I'm trying to avoid, looking at a display it seems the dewalts have the same style guard clamp.

 

[jeeper]

By swapping it back to SOA I get 4" more clearance.

As far as grinders go what bugged me the most about the Ryobi was the guard and how much of a pain it was to adjust.

Good work on the Axle!

For the grinder, we always remove the safety guard anyway

 

[nnnnnate]

I don't like the all on or off sliding trigger system..
I like the grinder to turn of when I let go, so when I cut my finger and drop it I don't cut off my toes also

For the grinder, we always remove the safety guard anyway

This one is on you Brian! And for the record when the trigger is locked and you drop the grinder after cutting your finger you automatically jump so there is no worry in cutting off your toe. I ended up buying a Bosch. It was awesome, I thought the flap disk was about dead that I was using on the Ryobi but when I mounted it on the new grinder it was still working great. Its going to take a bit of getting used to but I like it so far.

 

[nnnnnate]

The latches and tailgate cables I ordered from Amazon both aren't going to work out. The cables aren't long enough and the latches are the wrong style. I started to make my own cables with coated braided steel line and aluminum crush sleeves but didn't think through how to attach them to the tailgate and tub very well. I drilled into the support tube and then welded a nut with an eye bolt attached into the hole, that part worked great. When I crimped on the line though I had to unscrew the eye bolt and as I did this the line got all twisted up and buggered. I've got a revised plan on how to deal with that though. Because of my hardware setbacks yesterday my drop tailgate has temporarily turned into a fixed tailgate until I get back from my trip this weekend. I just tacked some scrap on the top rails to keep it from dropping.

While I was at the hardware store (south fork in WVC, love that they have so many random nuts/bolts/chain etc...) I realized that I didn't have a safety chain to attach from the trailer to the tow rig. I picked up a few different things and went home to try and get it sorted. Again I didn't think things through that well and after getting home wondered how I was going to attach the beefy eye bolt to the tongue so I could then attach the chain to the trailer. As I was sitting there I realized the eye bolt was just under 5/8" and I removed the hitch pin from my ball coupler and was able to slide the eye bolt into the drilled hole and tighten the nut down keeping it in place. It works about perfect but I'm wondering if there is an issue using the eye bolt rather than an "official" hitch pin. Anyway, with that in place I got the chain attached and then called it a night. I need to measure the right chain length tonight and cut it down.

 

[jeeper]

This one is on you Brian! And for the record when the trigger is locked and you drop the grinder after cutting your finger you automatically jump so there is no worry in cutting off your toe. I ended up buying a Bosch. It was awesome, I thought the flap disk was about dead that I was using on the Ryobi but when I mounted it on the new grinder it was still working great. Its going to take a bit of getting used to but I like it so far.

View attachment 97656

OUCH!!! That's a painful one

 

[sixstringsteve]

I always keep the guards on my grinders. I've got the scars to show for the times I've borrowed friends' grinders without the guards.

 

[nnnnnate]

Its not too bad. I thought it was worse than it was initially but I had to get some stuff done so I threw on a latex glove and kept going, I did just bump it at work though which didn't feel great. Self cauterizing.

I've been pretty good about my PPE on this project. It would help if I had two grinders, one for a flap disk and another for the cutting disks. I had been pulling the guard off for the flap disk and putting it back on with the grinder but didn't yesterday.

 

[I Lean]

Yes, buy more grinders. I have a Metabo and a DeWalt for my "good" ones, a Bosch for a mostly-good, and 3 Drill Master (Harbor Freight). I keep something different on each one, so I don't have to change wheels very much. One for sanding disc, one for flap wheel, one for cutoff wheel, two for wire wheels, etc. Pick up the HF ones when they go on sale for $10, and it doesn't hurt the wallet too much.

Actually come to think of it, I may be down to 2 HF grinders. I can't remember if one finally fell apart or not. If it's still running, it has a couple nice cracks in it that threaten to let it disassemble itself during use.

 

[sixstringsteve]

I bought a couple cheap $10 HF grinders for that exact purpose. So far they haven't died, but I know it's only a matter of time.

 

[bryson]

As for your hitch pin/eye bolt question - I don't like that setup. I'm sure the eye bolt is strong enough, but I don't like that it is also the hitch pin. Think if the bolt/pin broke (a reason for the chains in the first place) you would also lose your safety chains. I'd just weld the last link of each chain to the tongue and be done with it:


On my old car/buggy hauler, I welded the bent part of a u-bolt to the tongue and ran the chains through that. It worked well, and was super simple too.

 

[Box Rocket]

As for your hitch pin/eye bolt question - I don't like that setup. I'm sure the eye bolt is strong enough, but I don't like that it is also the hitch pin. Think if the bolt/pin broke (a reason for the chains in the first place) you would also lose your safety chains. I'd just weld the last link of each chain to the tongue and be done with it:
View attachment 97666

On my old car/buggy hauler, I welded the bent part of a u-bolt to the tongue and ran the chains through that. It worked well, and was super simple too.

I agree with Bryson.

 

[nnnnnate]

Thanks for that feedback, I'll weld the chain direct to the tongue in the morning.

I did some work on the axle this afternoon.

I hadn't moved that rear spring hanger still and so I cut the old one off and moved it forward. This isn't a great picture but I think I may have moved it too far. Before I did this I wasn't getting any flex with the suspension. I could jump and bounce on the rear bumper and the tires would flex but there wasn't any movement from the suspension. After moving the hanger this was fixed.



Because I wasn't getting any flex previously I wasn't sure that I needed to move the axle to SOA and I didn't really want that much height anyway because of how the tongue lines up with my spare tire on the Jeep (using a ball coupler for the time being). With some flex though it was very apparent that SUA wasn't going to work so I chopped what stuck out from under the fender supports and flipped the axle. This is what I ended up with, loads of room.



Before I did all this work I drove to Triple S Steel to get a couple things on the freeway. I got up to speed just fine and didn't have any wiggles or shimmies moving fast. That was a good.

I've got all the parts on my workbench to make that DIY 3-axis coupler but I'm not going to have the time to built it before the trip. I was hoping to test it out but it'll be something fun to do in the next few weeks.

I decided to take the day off from work tomorrow to get a few more things done before heading to the Swell so hopefully I can have a productive morning and get more things crossed off the list. I asked my wife what was a good time to start grinding and was kind of surprised when she said 7:00, I was thinking closer to 8:00 so we'll see.