jon f mn
Well-known Member
Finally got some time to work on the trailer frame that is broke. The owners took my advice and decided to replace the beams rather than fix them. So I decided the easiest way was to pull the wheels out from under the trailer.
Once it was out it was easy to see the extent of the damage was even worse than I thought. The previous repairs were some of the worst I've seen. On one side the frame was broke both front to back and top to bottom. And the previous repair guy never even bothered to align the frame or weld the flange.
I don't know how they thought that would hold, and it is a dot violation when it left the shop. They were lucky to not get caught. Whoever was doing their inspections also wasn't doing their job.
Anyway, I started by cutting the old beam out and cleaning up the parts for welding.
Then I cut the new beam to lenth and drilled the holes for the top stop and torched the hole for the load carrying roller.
Just to show how poor the construction of this trailer was even from the factory. I couldn't figure out why the sides didn't match in the front and I couldn't pull them even.
Then I put a square on the front cross member.
The front crossmember was installed crooked from the factory. Lol. I didn't bother to fix that because it doesnt matter other than appearance and the frame is square and the axle is square.
So next was welding the beam in. Been several years since I did a vertical up weld and you can see they are not great, but I think they will hold.
Sorry this pic is out of order.
I added these 2 gussets to help keep it from cracking again. If the factory had put something like that in there this never would have been a problem.
That's as far as I got because I ran out of gas for the welder. .I should get done with the welding tomorrow.
Once it was out it was easy to see the extent of the damage was even worse than I thought. The previous repairs were some of the worst I've seen. On one side the frame was broke both front to back and top to bottom. And the previous repair guy never even bothered to align the frame or weld the flange.
I don't know how they thought that would hold, and it is a dot violation when it left the shop. They were lucky to not get caught. Whoever was doing their inspections also wasn't doing their job.
Anyway, I started by cutting the old beam out and cleaning up the parts for welding.
Then I cut the new beam to lenth and drilled the holes for the top stop and torched the hole for the load carrying roller.
Just to show how poor the construction of this trailer was even from the factory. I couldn't figure out why the sides didn't match in the front and I couldn't pull them even.
Then I put a square on the front cross member.
The front crossmember was installed crooked from the factory. Lol. I didn't bother to fix that because it doesnt matter other than appearance and the frame is square and the axle is square.
So next was welding the beam in. Been several years since I did a vertical up weld and you can see they are not great, but I think they will hold.
Sorry this pic is out of order.
I added these 2 gussets to help keep it from cracking again. If the factory had put something like that in there this never would have been a problem.
That's as far as I got because I ran out of gas for the welder. .I should get done with the welding tomorrow.