Thread: Slunnie's enclosed trailer build

Great, I do like a good trailer build thread.

As to you regretting it - stay tuned, the experts will surely tell you how to do what you already know how to.

It’s one of the reasons I stopped posting on some of my threads - got more comments like ‘you should do this’ or ‘This is how you do it’ even though I wasn’t asking for advice and had been doing what I was posting for years and really just trying to put something up others would be interested in.

Hope this doesn’t go that way, I’m happy to sit back and watch your progress.

Looking forward to following along

Originally Posted by Homestar

Great, I do like a good trailer build thread.

As to you regretting it - stay tuned, the experts will surely tell you how to do what you already know how to.

It’s one of the reasons I stopped posting on some of my threads - got more comments like ‘you should do this’ or ‘This is how you do it’ even though I wasn’t asking for advice and had been doing what I was posting for years and really just trying to put something up others would be interested in.

Hope this doesn’t go that way, I’m happy to sit back and watch your progress.

You're on the money, I bracing myself for it!

Hopefully it is seen as a good build.

Chassis is fully welded with fillets. Suspension points are added and welded in. These are 1500kg slipper springs, simple and effective. The axle is a 45mm square, when running 4WD tyres as I rule of thumb I go straight to 45mm irrespective of load rating for strength. Brakes are over-ride, cable operated disc brakes. Slimline bearings and Landcruiser 6 stud hubs running hilux wheels. The axle length was specified for these hilux splitties with 50mm tyre clearance to chassis on each side, but it looks like there may be more than that (did I add 50mm/side and the supplier do the same???). I've got some 17" Hilux steelies that may bring the clearances in a bit, will check it out a little later. The axle is in a SOA arrangement rather than a conventional setup, this is to bring the trailer ride height up higher. The normal tow vehicle is my Disco2 which sits about 6-7" higher than standard, so having the trailer axle setup like this actually levels it out. Drawbar has been added, this is made from 75x50x4 with a clearance to the body of 1350mm. The coupling plate is on but obscured. I've done this a little differently also, rather than overhanging the plate so the front bolts are off the end of the drawbar, this time I have shifted the coupling plate a little further rearward and I will drill out the top of the drawbar so the couplings front bolts go through the coupling plate and through the top of the drawbar. It looks a bit tidier, see how it goes... I'm sure I'll find out why we don't normally do it that way shortly. Trailer is ready to flip onto its wheels, my Yr12 are really handy for this!

Oh, just looking at the welder, we run a fleet of these WIA 270C Mig welders. I cant speak more highly of them. The cabinets are really intelligently designed, they know what fails and why and have designed for it. eg, drop down lids. These are transformer rather than inverter, so they are heavy but should also have longevity. The welder is very forgiving and great for people learning to weld while at the same time they have a lot of grunt, the settings can be off a little bit and a good weld can still be put down. The students have about 3 base settings and almost all work is done on those settings. We run 0.8mm wire for flexability between thin 1.6mm welding and chassis etc up to about 5-6mm and the odd bit of 10-12mm plate. We run about 10-15l/min gas flow rate with Argoshield light. With a 270A gun we melt very few contact tips these days. I'd recommend these, they do run on 15amp but for heavier work over 6mm need 20amp single phase.

002.jpg

You can see below how the spring over axle arrangement levels the trailer behind my Disco2.
Disco2 18Dec2020 resize 800x600.jpg

We run Fronius in our workshop (spoilt I know) but they are the bees knees and are built for the tasks we do
18 months old and over 1100 hrs of arc time so far with know faults as yet

Originally Posted by Bluetoes

We run Fronius in our workshop (spoilt I know) but they are the bees knees and are built for the tasks we do
18 months old and over 1100 hrs of arc time so far with know faults as yet

Thats good going! These WIA units are now 5 years old, no idea re arc time, but will check out the Fronius also when they get turned over.

Originally Posted by Slunnie

I've done this a little differently also, rather than overhanging the plate so the front bolts are off the end of the drawbar, this time I have shifted the coupling plate a little further rearward and I will drill out the top of the drawbar so the couplings front bolts go through the coupling plate and through the top of the drawbar.

I assume the coupling plate is underneath the drawbar and that the bolts through the top of the drawbar are the bolt heads so that you're not clamping an air gap.

Originally Posted by Graeme

I assume the coupling plate is underneath the drawbar and that the bolts through the top of the drawbar are the bolt heads so that you're not clamping an air gap.

In that picture with the trailer upside down so you can't see the coupling plate, but when the trailer is flipped onto it's wheels the coupling plate will sit on top of the drawbar. I'll just drill through the top of the drawbar only and then instead of couplings bolts only going into the coupling plate, they will also go through the top of the drawbar and I'll just fit the nuts from inside the drawbar... assuming all goes well! There won't be any air gap with the bolting though, if I went all the way through the drawbar it would need crush tubes also, but I dont think I need to go that far with it.