It's not even a vehicle... or mine for that matter...

Over on my short thread about load carrying capacities of LR axles I asked if anyone was interested in a rebuild thread on the farm trailer I'm doing - Flat said yes, so you've only got him/yourself to blame for reading this!


I moved to a new house on a farm in feb after buying a project disco off Joe - a member on here (that's another thread to come) and they had/have a knackered trailer/muck cart that sits out in all weathers, stacked up with horse crap and bedding until it can be emptied once or twice a week.

This thing is pretty old - they've had it for at least 14 years, and I think it was probably at least 2nd hand when they aquired it.


Anyway, it was pretty much on its last legs and I (as the new boy round ere..) was asked if I'd like like to rebuild it. I said no initially as fitting it in with other work and family activities (2 kids etc) would be tricky.

Then for some reason I found myself saying yes!


So before work could begin I needed to source some steel. The original framework was C section steel beam for the bottom chassis, then on top of this and hinged at the rear is the middle section which a hydraulic ram locates into to give the muck cart its tipping ability. On top of this mid section is the third and final section of steel frame which is the base for the bed and sides of the trailer (made of wooden planks), into which all the horse muck goes.

This is a relatively large trailer, so takes a good few days to fill, so in the meantime all the crap that is in it drains through the slats in the base, drips all over the steel and had done a really good job of rotting the metal away.
This picture was taken further down the line, but you can see how bad it was - the r/h rear corner wasn't attached, it was only held up by the wood, and the middle cross member in the pic is where I fell through


I had seriously underestimated the amount of work this thing required, even from the point of cleaning up the exsisting steel to build upon. That's not a mistake I will make ever again if I can help it.
I've gone though about £40 or so worth of cutting and grinding discs, a pant load of flap wheels and about 4 wire grinder wheels, and worst of all is that I have no fecking idea where my grinder side handle has gone, so now have wrists of ...well, crap really. Oh and a set of brushes for my grinder too.



Hey ho - [Horse] **** happens...


I elected to rebuild this using box section 100x50mm 2.5mm or 3mm wall steel to keep the corrosive effluent out, rather than sitting in the C sections, and then managed to find some weathered galvanised RHS steel at a good price and more or less the right sizes.

I was a little bit short, so made up the shortfall in steel with some 50x50mm mild steel box that I could double up on to give me the 100mm tall dimension, whilst also giving a stronger beam to put directly behind the hydraulic ram.


Before taking the trailer out of action I wanted to start building the top frame, so that the inconvenience was minimised.


But before I could start any welding I had a very important job to take care of first, as with many visitors milling around the farm I need to make a cosmetic change - if I wanted a cheesy helmet, I'd just leave the same pair of pants on all week:

Krylon matte black to the rescue - it's some good cake this stuff, I use it in camo patterns on firearm stocks and metalwork:

Once I'd got meself a nicely blackened helmet, I could begin.



Lots of people tell me 'You can't weld Galv steel!' - bollocks I say, they just haven't cleaned off the zinc properly. I made sure to get right back to bright steel with the grinder, and though a messy job, it's worth it.


I had to start by lengthening two of the 100x50 beams, to give me the side rails, as the longest I had was 2 metres, when I needed just a tad over 3m for the finished length.


So the beams were cut and joined and the join was braced on either side by 5mm angle iron:


Shortly after doing the first one of these my welder went a bit spaz, and I just couldn't get any decent penetration with it (fnarr fnarr) so took up my neighbours offer of using his welder - a nice little Snap on 185amp mig. Suffice to say it performed a llittle more reliably than my 135a SIP!


Progress...



How's ma weldin?

The one to go behind the ram got seam welded along the whole length of the join - strength is obviously a big factor here, but also important was to seal the tubes so that the joining faces were not susceptible to rot. The other 50x50 double beam that I joined together only got a few stich welds along the length and then a good squidge of tiger seal wammed into the join.

The crossmember behind the ram needed to go on last, so that it could butt up to the ram mount, just incase any of my measurements were out.


Then it was onto stripping the trailer. Oh yay...

As you can see from the pictures, the thing was so rotten, they were lucky not to have anyone fall through it (as I did later on) and it was difficult to know if the rotten steel or the rotten wood was stronger in some places!


As you can see, I like to get the most out of my cutting discs!
They were a good deal though, and 1.2mm discs made short work of the metal when cutting the old crap off, but the difference in longevity between those and 2.5mm discs is like night and day. I probably went through 8 of the 1.2mm discs for every single 2.5mm cutting disc!

Then it was onto the cleaning stage - this was the least fun and took the most time of the whole project. The level of corrosion was severe and on this heavy guge steel the surface was extremely pitted - some of the pits were deeper than the new steel going on top! The wire cup brushes are a joy to use on this stuff, and although they tend to burnish the oxidised layers into a nice ish looking shiney surface, it's just not clean steel.
So, out comes the hammer a bit of gentle smashing which means that the big flakes (5mm thick) come mostly off, and the wire wheels take care of the rest. The twisted wire brush wheels are just brutal, but the twisted wire cup brushes are much nicer to use - maybe it's because you can keep the guard on the grinder?
After nearly losing my index finger nail twice, I put thicker gloves on (welding gauntlets) which helped .

Finally I attacked the surface for a bit with the grinding disc and/or flap wheels to try and get back to almost bare metal.
After that I painted with Flag Rust Converter paint - I'll have to wait to see how good this stuff is, but I'm hoping it doesn't let me down.

I started to run out of light (as on most nights when doing this) but wanted to get as much done as possible, so after taking the hinged middle section off the A frame, I dragged it around the corner under a nice big flood light for some more grinding/wire brushing fun, followed by the flag stuff - not a bad place to work:


Thankfully some good weather meant that I could paint over the Flag rust converter - I bought 5L of single pack Anti Corrosive Vinyl paint - chosen for it's specific ability to cling to difficult-to-paint substrates, in this case the galvanised steel of the new top section.






Here's the A frame, painted up and dragged back to where I'm working, with the middle hinged section on it's side.


One unfortunate thing I overlooked was the rear crossmember for the A frame/chassis - thankfully I managed to aquire an almost perfect bit of steel RHS which fitted rather nicely after a bit of slicing. I then stuck it on with a mixture of quite nice and quite crappy welds. This also got a lick of the Flag rust converter before top coating with the Vinyl pain in Sky Blue.



Incidentally, the paint sprayer I use was an old Earlex HLVP spray station and it worked brilliantly for this purpose. I only had one nozzle for the spray gun though, so thinned the paint quite well (about 15-20% Xylene thinners). It gives a good finish outdoors with almost no surface prep (compared to a decent car panel paint job), so might be possible to paint a car with it if the prep was good and done indoors with single pack paints/cellulose...

Next up I degreased it and added a bit more Flag stuff to those areas I missed previously, degreased again after it dried and then got painting! Very satisfying to see it all in one colour with a nice satin finish. I even did the wheels, although their time is limited due to how badly corroded the axle and hubs are - that's a job for another time though..




I had a few trial fits of the sheet flooring along the way - some 18mm OSB - but could get on with adding that over the last few nights, though not before fitting the new 2 stage hydraulic ram.

mate thats well good, some hefty welding.

I like

Wont OSB last about 10seconds with horse **** and **** on it?

Wouldnt you be better with rivetting on or something a large sheet (or sheets) of steel or ally?

Thanks
Yeah I made a debateable choice with the OSB - will put a treated ply skin over the top..
Got some more pics to go on in a second..

Joe (neighbour) took the old leaking ram into work to get it resealed, where they pronounced it dead, so he managed to source a new one from ebay for less than £200 delivered. It needed a bit of paint - primer first, although it looks like a nice gloss red, it's actually just wet red oxide! Then on with a coat or two of satin black. Once I wammed it into the trailer I had to mess around with the securing pins. One was past it, so have just made a very rudimentry replacement from a bit or 10mm round bar stock I had laying about.

Rear cross member:


A bit of slap on the rusty bits..

Bloooo....






Glad I parked the disco far enough away to not not catch any overspray

Ram as unpainted and then in wet red oxide:

I didn't get a pic of the ram in the finished satin black paint, too much to do and keep forgetting to get the phone out for pics!


That takes us pretty much up to the last day or two - I cut the last bit of sheet material for the floor, slapped on a load of creosote and fitted it. Then with the torch holding help of my wife last night I fitted the wooden planks to the trailer front and one side last night, and was hoping to get the other side done tonight followed by some more creosote to the base before the cruddy weather hit, but I was beaten to it.


The flooring probably isn't the best stuff to use - 18mm OSB - I don't think it's going to be ideal with only creosote protecting it, so it may well have a yacht varnish or thin ply over the top just to add some more protection from the elements.

Looks great trailer

Looks like new. That's a bloody good job

Very kind, thanks! I just wish the welding was a little more consistent - most of my upside down welds were almost perfect, whereas a few of the vertical ones were very proud of the metal and blobby

Saltlick said:

Very kind, thanks! I just wish the welding was a little more consistent - most of my upside down welds were almost perfect, whereas a few of the vertical ones were very proud of the metal and blobby

Click to expand...

Grinder hides a multitude of sins

I did think that, and was going to tidy up some of them until I thought to myself - "it's a farm trailer, it is only going to hold ****!"

Yeah fair point

aaaaand it's FINISHED!


I didn't get any pictures of it all done and dusted last night as it was late and wazzing it down

But, The concerns about the OSB forced me to do it properly/better - I bought some 12mm Hardwood faced ply which I treated to a thick coat of creosote on both sides and all the edges. I slapped some more onto the OSB too before putting the ply on top. So the theory is that the OSB will now be shielded from the rain, but is still treated and will provide a lot of strength to the half inch ply ontop, which should now be a significantly better weatherproof surface for the floor.

The 2 stage ram was connected up to the tractor and tested too last night and it's great - after being raised a couple of times the slight judder vanished and it was nice and smooth, plus it tips the bed a whole lot higher than the old one did.

I did need to make a keeper pin for the bottom pin of the ram though, as the old was knackered, so I cut some 10mm bar, slotted one end and spread it wide, then flattened one side of the other end before drilling a hole for a stainless split pin. Hmm... think I've already covered that bit, but I did forget to take pictures :doh:

Nice work!

Been there before myself, it was a very similar trailer too.

Awesome work. Trailer looks the bizz. Nice one!

Good story. I think I can see an old Allen reciprocating mower in the background of one of the pictures too.

Totally transformed

Looking ace, how much would a new one have cost to buy???
I would still have concerns about that OSB treated or covered or not, once it starts to rot it will have all the strength of weetabix in hot milk.

looks good, but as above osb?! hope you got marine ply and not the cheap stuff