I made a dump trailer (pics)

I took a flare box and made a gooseneck trailer for it. I used 2x4 tubing 1/4 wall. All gussets are 1/4" also. Hinge brackets and 1" pipe 3/16" wall and I put a greese zirk on each one. I have about 30 hours in it and built it on my lunch hour at work. I have hauled 6200lbs in it and it pulls like a dream!

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The main frame

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My axle

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Axle mounted to frame

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Uprights welded on

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Top frame welded on

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Gooseneck welded on

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Jack off a semi. It didn't go low enough so I made an extenstion for it.

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Frame done and painted

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Fenders made from 1/8" sheet steal

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1/2" EMT conduit for the taillight wires

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Finished product
 
Looks good!
Did you pull the axle shafts out and cut them off? Or you can just make a plate and seal the axle housing each end. Saves turning all the gears in the pumpkin. Could even gut the pumpkin and sell the parts.
 
That's really nice, especially the repurpose of a flare box wagon..nice and slick on the inside.

Irv
 
A few comments from the peanut gallery, if I may.
Your paint and attention to detail looks very
nice. I am suspicious that a 2x4 box tube will be
your undoing in the long run. There isn't enough
bending strength for the long haul. You may get
away with it under the box but I think that after
some hard miles with a load, you will get bending
in the tubes on the gooseneck. There is a reason
why the pros use heavy c channel. Like I said, it
looks really nice and will probably serve you well
if you only load it lightly.
 
You better start thinking of how your going to build a truss to go on top of the gooseneck! When I built my gooseneck adapter I used 12x19 beams. It is only a 14,000-lb trailer.
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I think that with the 1/4 wall tube that part will
be fine. He has the axle nearly centered so there
won.t be a lot of tonge weight, and he has it
gussetted right to take the pull. If there is a
problem it will be that he needs a cross member or
two in the gooseneck to keep them from flexing
from side pull. If he gets one of those wheels in
a hole or in the mud he could flex those tubes
sideways enough to be a problem. They could also
start to wobble from road vibration without the
stiffeners too. But over all a very well done rig.
 
I would also like to see 4 gussets in each of the corners of the uprights to keep that square. Again corners are going to put a lot of side pressure on that part. Anytime you stress a structure to it's max like here you have to have the support structure perfect to keep everything straight. I would hate to see something this nice fail for lack of a couple little missing pieces.
 
Hey Justin.

Beautiful work!

I like to use square or rectangle tubing also. It looks great and is stronger than c-channel in regards to twisting and odd angle loads.

Great attention to detail and a machine to be proud of.

Brad
 
Here is a uniform load chart for 2”x4” with 3/8” wall rectangular tube. Remember now these are static loads, I have no idea what dynamic loads would be! These are also in kips.
So lets say he has an 8-feet span, take the lower number of 6.4. Generally with these uniform load charts you divide in half for point loads, which that is what we have here. So now we have 3.2. But we have two pieces of rectangular tube, so we are back up to 6.4. So that is six thousand 400 pounds of static load. Anybody want to calculate for a dynamic load?

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If it were mine which it aint. I would load er up and see what happened. If it started to flex pulling under load I would cut out the front gussets, knotch the back gussets to take a rail like you have and weld it under the top one. Re weld the front gussets back under. and touch up the nice red paint. When the wheels hit a rut in the field loaded would be when it might flex down more than expected if it is going to.
 
For only 6200 lbs in the bed I think you will be fine. The only thing I personally would have done different is a larger gusset at the front of the main frame into the vertical tubes but I can see why you didn't as your bed would have hit them which you could have used flat iron to basically truss out around the corner but in all reality you will probably be fine. I think a lot of people on here would be amazed at how light most commercial trailers are. There is a balance between weight and load capacity, if you over build it like crazy that just takes away from your cargo capacity for no reason.
 
Here ya go. My degree comes from the school of hard knocks and life lessons. It's certified by real life experience and a few pictures for you.
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(quoted from post at 07:53:00 03/21/13) I think that with the 1/4 wall tube that part will
be fine. He has the axle nearly centered so there
won.t be a lot of tonge weight, and he has it
gussetted right to take the pull. If there is a
problem it will be that he needs a cross member or
two in the gooseneck to keep them from flexing
from side pull. If he gets one of those wheels in
a hole or in the mud he could flex those tubes
sideways enough to be a problem. They could also
start to wobble from road vibration without the
stiffeners too. But over all a very well done rig.

You are right! When it is loaded there isn't a lot of tounge weight. If the top beams bend then I have done something bad wrong and I deserve for them to bend! Thanks for all your kind words!
 
I do see a couple of minor flaws that could lead to
trouble. If you are interested in talking about them
send me an email. mine's open.
 
(quoted from post at 21:10:42 03/21/13) I do see a couple of minor flaws that could lead to
trouble. If you are interested in talking about them
send me an email. mine's open.

Please tell on here! I rarely get on my email and am not very good at email anyway! I always take constructive criticism as I always want to learn. So what is it that I could do a little differently?
 
Well the biggest problem is the jack. 4" of weld on the bottom is not going to cut it if you dolly down with a load on a hill. That part is almost certain to fail. But the cure for that will help another weakness that isn't as bad and that is you need more suport on your gooseneck. On the upright part there should be some gussets to hold it square from side to side. So I would put another cross member of 2x4 or 4x4 across at the top of the jack. You can weld the jack to it eliminating that issue and then a gusset at each end takes care of the other problem too. For gussets I would use the same size you used on the lower frame, put it so the long edge goes up and down and points to the center at the cross member. I would also like to see 2 cross members in the upper gooseneck deviding that span into 1/3's. Those don't need to be heavy just anything 4" tall. And just for your info and I'm not sure I would change it here, I hate to see you do too much damage to a real nice looking trailer, but on the large gussets at the top rear of the gooseneck they should always be welded like the front or lower ones. When you weld in the center of the tube there is the potential to stretch the center out and that could lead to failure. If it's welded to the corner or side it can't stretch and deform the tube.
 
I've always wondered about mounting a brake on the input yoke somehow. Considering it would have a 3:1 or 4:1 mechanical advantage over a wheel-end brake it should really stop you, but then it would be turning 3-4 times faster than the wheel brake as well, so it might not last.
 

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