Scratch Build Questions

[GeoTracker90]

I took the box and tongue deck length (103") and multiplied that by 65% to get 67". So to me that means from the front of the tongue deck measure back 67" and that is where the center of the axle should sit. (This puts it 36" from the rear of the trailer.) From there I measured out for the bracket hangers and marked where they should go. I bought the springs and all the hangers with the axle and was told that the perch centers needed to be 1" longer than the spring. After double checking all my measurements I clamped down the front hangers and measured to the front of the receiver tube and was off only 1/8" which I was happy about.

nnnnnate, I don't know if its too late or not, but may I give some input into the shackle angle? For my own trailers I actually move the shackle mount closer to the front spring mount. By doing this the shackles will angle to the back instead of angling towards the front of the trailer. With the shackles angled forward, as shown in the picture, the spring is forced to lift the weight of the trailer as the spring extends and flattens out when the trailer encounters a bump.

If instead the shackle is angled towards the rear of the trailer then the spring is not forced to lift the weight of the trailer. Instead it just compresses, flattens out and the shackle swings to the rear when a bump is encountered. This results in a smoother action of the trailer suspension and less tendency to bounce around as much.

Just my thoughts on the subject. Good luck with the build and with coming up with a solution for your axle width.

Mike

 

[nnnnnate]

Haven't updated this in a while so I'll copy/pasta a bunch of stuff into this thread.

2-23-15
I chopped the axle.

2/24/15
Today I learned the difference between pipe and tube. The axle I cut is pipe, tube is what I wish it was since there isn't pipe out there that nests well within itself. The OD is 2 3/8" while the ID is 2.102". The closest I can come to sleeving the inside is 2" which isn't tight and the closest I can come to the OD is 2.5" which also allows plenty of wiggle.

2/26/15
I had a friend offer to turn down some DOM so it would be a tight fit in the axle. I bought a super beefy 2' section and dropped it off at his place. This is what it looked like after he turned it and I got it home to weld it together.

2/27/15
Hey guys. I'VE GOT A ROLLER!!!

3/4/15
I bought nearly all the parts for the DIY 3 axis off road coupler on Saturday but after cleaning up the garage didn't want to make a mess. I needed two of one of the top link bushings but only was able to find one in stock so I'll have to try and get back out to Tractor Supply to see if any more came in. Cal Ranch and IFA didn't have them either and I'm not sure where else to find something like that.

I've been a pansy with the cold weather and haven't done any work on this the last few nights. It does look like we'll have a nice weekend though so I need to pick up some more material for the next step. I think I'm going to go with 1.5" square 14 gauge for the uprights and I'm leaning towards 2" square for the cap rails so I'll have a little bit of a lip but also a good mating surface for a removable cap.

3/5/15
I got the ball coupler yesterday and welded it to some tube then drug the trailer around the neighborhood. It seemed to do just fine but I need to drain the air out of the tires.

It jackknifes well too with a little extra room to spare.

 

[nnnnnate]

3/6/15
Couple update pics. I worked for about 4 hours this afternoon and got the side rails totally finished. It was a ton of work getting the side rails on and trying to square everything up. I'm about 3/16th off on the width from front to back but I figure thats pretty close. I had planned to work on the sheet metal tomorrow but I'm pretty exhausted so we'll see, I have a hard time sitting still though so I'm sure I'll do something with it.

3/7/15
I just finished up for the day, I got all the sheet fitted which took a ton of grinding. I kind of wanted to tack the sheet into place but started to wonder if I shouldn't add some more cross bracing for the floor to try and keep the sheet from deforming. Anyone that has a little trailer, have any of you had bowing in the floor? I've got some 1.5" square thats .06 thick that I could add to try and help out. Being that its so thin though would it do any good?

I'll think about it the rest of the weekend then probably start welding it into place on Monday. I also need to figure out the best way to weld thin-ish sheet to thicker tube. I'll probably post up in the welding thread for tips on that.

3/9/15
Cross bracing tacked in down the center. I just used some thin walled 1.5" square, I think it was .06".

I got the floor welded in. I tacked it around the edges then crawled underneath to weld the sheet to the cross members in a few places but it didn't go well. I burned a hole in one place and just couldn't see well enough to get the bead in the right place. I think I'm going to have to stand the trailer on a side or something to get the bottom done.

I was going to tack on the side panels but realized I had forgotten to trim them down the length so I called it a night and will work on that later this week.

I started to think about paint and looked into Raptor liner like BoxRocket used. I'll probably go that route but for giggles I think I'm going to check on powder coating though I doubt I'll be able to afford that.

Also, I realized this morning I screwed up and didn't extend the sides all the way to the back of the rear "bumper," I set the rear vertical post at the front of that tube which will mess up the hinging of my tailgate. I was kind of bummed about that but I think I will weld an additional vertical post there to fill in the gap. Hopefully that will do the trick.

I ended up ordering some fenders today from e-trailer. From the frame to the outside of my tire is 13.5", I checked a couple local places neither place had anything in stock or could get something wider than 10". I found some fenders that are 13"x36"x20" and hope they will work out for me. They were $45 each so they were definitely not cheap. Since I was $10 from the free shipping cutoff I added a tongue jack to the order and saved $45 in shipping fees and I was pretty happy I already got shipping info.

3/10/15
I'm not a big fan of welding sheet metal I decided this afternoon.

3/14/15
I worked for about 5 hours this today and feel like I got a lot done but the trailer really doesn't look any different. I finished up welding the sheet metal, chopped off the wings I had in front of the platform, mounted the jack, built a tailgate, and did a ton of grinding.

I got my fenders on Thursday and I thought I was going to get them mounted today but I put them off. I've been playing with the axle trying to figure out if I want it SOA or SUA and I'm still not decided. With it SOA its about 2" higher than the hitch on my JK, SUA is about 2" lower. I don't think I need the height but I just need to decide what I want out of it before I do the fenders.

 

[nnnnnate]

3/16/15
Started to mount the fenders this afternoon, things went pretty well.

Here I have the front and rear supports tacked on and the fender supported with jacks to check the fit. Since I don't really know how much room I should give I landed on this and thought it was pretty good. The spacing is pretty even all around the fender in relation to the tire.

Here I notched the fender on the inside so it will sit flush on the tub and clear the frame.

In the first picture you can see that the fenders extend down quiet a bit past the frame, its just under 6". I was trying to figure out the best way to attach the fenders to the trailer and I think I'd like to bolt it on. So I figured I'd take a gamble and I notched the front of one of them and tried to bend 2" flat so I would curl under the front support and I could then bolt it on there. That worked pretty well but it didn't bend as crisp as I had hoped it would. I figured worst case I would just chop that 2" piece off and go from there. I'm not sure if doing that was a good idea or not still. Whats the easiest way to bend the fender lip? Its 16 GA I think.

I was thinking that I would put 2 bolts on the front support and two on the rear support then one at the top where it crosses the vertical tub support. Is that enough?

Thanks for the feedback. I'm getting close to being done which means I'm almost out of stupid questions. I'm trying to do a big push this week so I can take it to the swell on Friday. It won't be painted by then but it'll give me a chance to use it and see if I need to make any changes or additions before then.

*** I got a ton of feedback today from my local forum that I needed more clearance between the tire and fender. My suspension wasn't flexing really at all because I mounted the spring hangers in bad positions. I addressed this later in the thread.***

3/17/15
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.

3/18/15
*Referencing some comments about my tire clearance
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.

3/19/15
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 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.

3/19/15
*I got some feedback about my safety chains between this next post and the previous one.

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 my steel yard 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 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.

 

[nnnnnate]

3/20/15
I got everything done I wanted to this morning.

No sheet on the sides for now, I'll add it next week.
Click image for larger version.

After getting back from the car wash, its sits a lot higher than SUA.

I started packing and was super excited for how much room I have. Now I'll actually be able to contribute with firewood.

3/23/15
We got back from the Swell last night and had a really good time. I was very pleased with the trailer, it handled 80 mph perfect and did decent on the bouncy dirt roads getting to camp. We camped at the typical swell Cruise Moab basecamp right next to Lone Warrior and headed home via Locomotive Point/Head of Sinbad (pretty sure thats what it was called.) On this route you go down a pretty steep slope with some ledges and decent rocks littering the trail. I was a little nervous how the trailer would do with my 2" ball coupler I used but it did great.

Here are a couple pics of my campsite with my guard dog.

Impressions after the shakedown trip:
- So when I posted pics of the spring hanger I mentioned that I thought I might have moved it too far forward. This was confirmed when I looked under the trailer at camp on Saturday. The shackle had flexed all the way up and was resting on the frame. I think I moved them forward about 2.5" or so. I'll need to move them back about an inch.

- I was happy with the tie down points but want to add a few more. If I remember right I did 4 on each side with a couple up front.

- I really want a functional tailgate to use as a table. If I had that I think I could leave home the little lifetime table I bought last year. It would also be nice to use as a seat at times. The front tongue and sides were a nice place to leave my storage boxes while in camp to have things accessible.

- I need a lid for the box super bad. The dust covering everything drove me nuts. I'll need to seal the seams and add a gasket to the tailgate but putting a lid on it would improve me feeling filthy the whole time. I was going to put this off until later this summer after I got another project or two done but its moved up a lot on the list. I'll build this before I paint the trailer.

- I'm curious about what would change if I added some shocks to the trailer. I'll need to look into this a bit more and see if it will be worth it for me.

 

[nnnnnate]

**All up to date after this posting.

4/1/15
After being really busy last week I found some time to work on the trailer last night. I picked up some latches from Marshells Industrial Hardware (I love that store) on my way home and bolted them up. Then I crimped the coated cabling and fixed it to the tailgate. My mount points for the cables interfere a little with the tailgate closing unless they are in just the right place which is kind of annoying but it'll work fine for now. I'm thinking that with a functional tailgate I won't need to bring my table anymore when I go camping which will be nice. My wife came outside right as I was finishing up the cables and asked if they were going to hold. I told her to sit on it to test it for me since she was lighter than me. She didn't go for it and when I sat on down on it the tongue lifted up rather than me breaking the cables.

I've been moving the trailer from the garage to the rv pad since the trailer became a roller and I'm really getting tired of lifting it up, its getting heavy. A while back I bought a HF wheel that I was going to try and mate to the jack I have but the base plate on the jack is smaller than the top plate for the wheel. I don't know that I can bolt them together because of this. I also don't know that I want to weld the wheel to the jack. I'll see if I can figure out something for it though this weekend.

If anyone is still reading after all these updates, thanks. This project has been a lot of fun and I'm really happy with where its at. Now I need to just power through and finish it up so I can start on some other things that need attention.