Back in the days when I was farming "full time", I had a grain truck and a small(ish) "pup trailer" to haul with. When I quit the row crop operation in 1995, I sold the truck and repurposed the trailer frame to another use. In 2017 we got back into row crops on a small scale and simply handled the hauling with a few wagons which was an adequate solution. Last year, I added a medium duty truck and trailer but wasn't satisfied with the results.
For 2020 harvest, we upgraded our combine to a machine with 2x the capacity so no way in hades can I keep up with hauling. Dragging wagons the 15 miles town with a pickup is far too inefficient and dangerous and I couldn't find a higher capacity trailer for my truck at a price I could live with. I had been considering the old repurposed trailer frame for a while and had purchased a set of tandem axles in 2018 to upgrade it but had not had or made time to complete the task.
Last week, I did some figuring and determined what and how much new metal was needed to meld the old frame and the set of axles into a roadworthy trailer. Yesterday, we loaded the jumble of iron and hauled it to Son's house to fabri-cobble into a unit. The finished product is pretty darned good if I do say so myself. Son spent some big bucks on a top of the line MIG welder 2 years ago but we really haven't used it much until this job. Man, it lays down some nice weld. I let him do all the welding since it's his toy but I did brag on the results. I don't do that well most days because I get the jiggles lately.
Today, I get the messy job of adjusting wheel bearings and cleaning lug bolt threads. Today's probably going to be too muddy and sloppy to retrieve the grain box that's slated to ride this new trailer and I didn't buy the new wiring until I could figure out how much of what it would take to reach tail ights and brakes so maybe all I get done is the bearings and some paint on the new metal parts.
For 2020 harvest, we upgraded our combine to a machine with 2x the capacity so no way in hades can I keep up with hauling. Dragging wagons the 15 miles town with a pickup is far too inefficient and dangerous and I couldn't find a higher capacity trailer for my truck at a price I could live with. I had been considering the old repurposed trailer frame for a while and had purchased a set of tandem axles in 2018 to upgrade it but had not had or made time to complete the task.
Last week, I did some figuring and determined what and how much new metal was needed to meld the old frame and the set of axles into a roadworthy trailer. Yesterday, we loaded the jumble of iron and hauled it to Son's house to fabri-cobble into a unit. The finished product is pretty darned good if I do say so myself. Son spent some big bucks on a top of the line MIG welder 2 years ago but we really haven't used it much until this job. Man, it lays down some nice weld. I let him do all the welding since it's his toy but I did brag on the results. I don't do that well most days because I get the jiggles lately.
Today, I get the messy job of adjusting wheel bearings and cleaning lug bolt threads. Today's probably going to be too muddy and sloppy to retrieve the grain box that's slated to ride this new trailer and I didn't buy the new wiring until I could figure out how much of what it would take to reach tail ights and brakes so maybe all I get done is the bearings and some paint on the new metal parts.
