My homemade dump trailer (pics)

I have been working on this for about an hour per day over my lunch break at work. I took a flare box and made a goose neck frame. I have had 6200 lbs in it and it pulls like a dream! I am very happy with the way it turned out!


The main frame

My axle

Axle mounted to main frame
Uprights welded to main frame

Welding on the top rails

Jack off a semi. It didn't go low enough so I made an extention tube

Made fenders out of 1/8" sheet steal

1/2 EMT conduit for taillight wires

Finished product

Great looking trailer!!

WOW! Purdy!

Excellent. Hope to see some pictures of it at work when the weather warms up.

Excellent work! How many lunch hours was that?

I think it took around 30 or so hours. It was a lot of work but I will use it a few times per week this whole summer!

That's very nice!!! And looks well built too. What
will you use to dump it? Don't see an electric/hyd.

Great looking Rig!

Nice looking trailer. How do you plan to make the hydraulic
brakes on your axle work?

I have a hydraulic pump coupled to a 5hp briggs. It is mounted to a base. I used a 5 gallon air pig for my oil tank. I will post a picture tomorrow.

The box is a "Nu-built" We had two of them on
Minnesota running gears when I was growing up.
Trailer brakes??

Looks great. I use to work in a fab shop. It was a lot more fun doing my projects on my lunch hour, then now, I cant get started until a long day at work.

Really nice looking trailer. Wish I had the talent to make something even a quarter that nice. Never learned to weld. Lack patience too. I want to see the finish project and go too fast for quality work.
Larry

Congratulations , for a nice completed project. You will receive many compliments for your nice looking trailer. Cheers, Murray

If you would remove the ring gear off of the carrier in the differential then reassemble you will find it will make a big difference on how easy it will pull since it is not having to spin the pinion gear. Looks awsome! Nice job! Dave

I usually just pop the spider gears out . quick n easy .

really nice! great job

Professional job. What kinds of brakes are you going to use, electric?

Looks nice so far, but a lot of work yet to make it road ready. If it's intended for use only in field or off road disregard the rest of this post.
Seems like a lot of fuss, but that is one reason factory built stuff costs more than a pile of iron & a box of welding rods. Take a close look at factory built trailers. They are built to minimum legal standards. Some may call me picky, but get stopped on road or involved in an accident & it will get really expensive. Even if other vehicle is at fault, you don't move from the scene until defects are corrected or the whole thing is loaded on a legal flatbed.
Don't scoff. Couple years ago I had to rescue neighbor with a load of firewood logs. He was pulling a borrowed home made trailer, lost a wheel. DOT car got there first. Got tickets for over truck weight rating, over hitch rating, bent hitch, illegal tires ( marked mobil home only) no brakes, 16 lights missing. Called for tow service with roll-back truck. Load too heavy, had to call construction company with lowboy trailer. Hard to find a driver on a summer Saturday afternoon. Total cost of fines & hauling well over $1,000. He now has stronger truck & factory built heavy duty trailer.

1- BRAKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Looks to be capable of over 3000# loaded weight. Some states allow to tap truck hydraulic system IF wheel cylinders less than a certain size. Otherwise need electric over hyd system or replace axle with electric brakes. Most states also require breakaway control able to stop trailer & hold 15 minutes if it comes unhitched.

2- remove the red parts of the reflective tape from front of fenders. Red is not allowed visible toward the front.

3- lights:
Red showing to rear & on side within 6 in of rear. Rear turn signals may be amber if seperate from tail & brake lights. All other lights amber. The red side lens on the lights in pic is not legal, too far from rear, must be amber.

Looks to be over 80 in wide.
Clearance/markers front & rear at widest point (fender corners) Must be seperate from regular tail/turn/brake lights.
Corner markers- sides, & front & rear corners of box.
ID (3 cluster/bar) front & rear, mounted as high as possible. If tailgate is removeable, rear bar may be mounted at bottom. Front not required if truck has 3 cluster & cab corner markers.

4- mud flaps or body panels. Ground clearance not more than 1/5 of distance from center of axle. EG: if flap is 30 in from axle, ground clearance not more than 6 in, if 50 in from axle, may have 10 in clearance.

5- safety chain hooks, strong enough to control trailer if it comes unhitched. Must have keepers to prevent hooks from accidently unhooking. On gooseneck chains must contain coupler within truck bed. On bumper pull chains must prevent hitch from touching ground.

End of rant.
Willie

Very nice. I like the conduit for wiring. Cool to see the pics of the progress. Very clean looking build. I would hire you in a heartbeat to weld anything I needed done.

If you dont mind saying, other than your time, how much did you have tied up in materials? BW

This may be a dumb question. With full-floating axle like that, the wheel bearings are on the outside of axle housing, the axle shafts do not carry any weight, only torque. Could you remove both axle shafts and the differential assembly without affecting the wheels or the brakes? That would reduce the total weight by 100 to 200 pounds (all of it unsprung weight), elliminate the friction of back-driving the pinion gears, and reduce the rotating inertia in that axle.

New sheet metal covers on the end of the hubs and over the pinion mounted hole would still be needed to keep dirt out of the wheel bearings.

I did pull the axles and cut them off. Then I bolted the plates bake on to keep the oil in. I have had a few people try to buy it already! Thanks for all your kind words!

I know its been awhile but what size tubing did you make the frame out of??