Rust Removal- Rust covering? Tilt Trailer mechanisms

I can answer one question, how to make it tilt. Get a really good set of wheel chocks, chock the trailer wheels so they can't move, then slowly reverse. Works the other way too, chock the front of the wheels and pull forward, it'll come level again. Slow is the go, if it jumps the chocks, it'll end in tears.

regards,

John

Rust Mort, put out by SEM. Look for it at an autobody supply place that sells auto paints. I like this stuff *much* better than Extend. I used it for well over a decade of rust work on MN cars. A quart of it runs about $15.00 now. A quart would do several trailers and a truck or two as well.

Knock off loose flaking rust (if any) with a quick trip around with a cup brush. Then slop on the rustmort with a brush or whatever. It's water-based stuff; just slop it on with a cheap brush you won't miss. (Wear rubber gloves and goggles) Let it work until stuff turns black, but don't let it dry. If it starts to dry, slop on some more. When it's "done" (5 minutes to an hour) hose it off good. When it's dry, shoot it with primer. I like zinc-rich primer like Instant Cold Galvanize. Grainger has one for $3.88 per rattlecan. 6KP26

's no good at all if you plan to shoot color, but it works fine as is. It's what I used on my 5x9 3000lb trailer.

Following those links on electrolysis someone posted yesterday, I came across your exact problem and the solution:

For small vehicles, that type of trailer usually has the ability to swivel the tongue off to the side. This allows the small vehicle to drive forwards, off the trailer once you pull the pin, and jackknife the trailer sideways.

I have in the past, used a jack under the front of the trailer, to allow loading or unloading. Thats how I got a larger LeBlond home eons ago. Used a come-along to winch it up the bed, till it tipped down on it's own. Being __>__ careful at that point... It was just ready to totter, so just walking up the trailer was all that was needed to tip it up, and install the pin. The come along could then move it forward and back to adjust the tongue weight, and back far enough to release the tonge weight to unload again. Nowdays, I call the local cement company, with a large boom truck and schedule when they are already driving past. Get a 30,000 lbs. boom truck for a just a few dollars if you are flexible on timing.

Pete

Cool!

Now I wonder how much all that plywood cost?

Gunner

"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child - miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosphy of sniveling brats." -- P.J. O'Rourke

Like so much on the antique-engines website, their advice on electrolysis is highly dubious. Don't use a welder here, the voltage is far too high. Instead find an old minicomputer PSU and stick to around 12V.

You can also parallel up a bunch of simple car battery chargers, each with their own anode.

On Sat, 11 Sep 2004 11:11:00 -0500, snipped-for-privacy@epsno.com (Jedd Haas) explained:

Scary. Do you think it could be adapted to my panel van?-)

Mark Rand RTFM

With a small floor jack

I've been using a needle blaster and pretty happy with the results. Not white metal but it will get the loose stuff off. Much less dusty than sanding, grinding or wire wheeling.

On Sat, 11 Sep 2004 10:25:15 GMT, Gunner calmly ranted:

Cool. Let's give her a trial run. Pop a small, inexpensive vertical mill on that puppy, run it up to me, and I'll put all new wiring and lights on it for you, no charge. ;)

Excellent!

Trailers are like that. Yeah they are.

Some of the brush-on Rustoleum primers are made for pre-rusted metal. I redid my front wrought iron railing with it 3 years ago and it hasn't shown any sign of rust yet. I used their black brush-on over it.

The quick answer: Carefully!

The old comealong-around-the-tongue-and-front-railing (in front) or lift-the-rear-with-a-pocket-hydraulic-jack (in back) both work. Sitting on the front rail and hanging over the edge to find the pin hole sometimes works, too. DAMHIKT.

210 whole pounds on a forklift? Gee, pushin' it, aintcha?

------------------------------------------------------------- give me The Luxuries Of Life *

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Chuckle...where were you when I had the small inexpensive vertical mill for sale? The Index?

Depending on what you want to do..I may be selling off my Gorton 3-Z pantograph. It does a good job of small milling with a 12x16 or so working space and has a knee. Ive used it as a small miller and it works very well with cutters up to about 1/4" . It will be quite cheap. I never could find any fonts for it that I could afford and the plan to have the disable missus make some pocket change by doing key chains and pool cue case labels has gone by the wayside..and its now pretty much in the way. Id make you a hell of a deal on it. Runs like a champ and even the paint is good . A couple of the local boys have made quite a few RC airplane parts on it.

I think Ill try that. Ive made some phone calls, and none of my buddies has acess to a tank sand blaster anytime soon. Seems to be something of a shortage of them currently. No one is sandblasting oil field tanks at the moment. Ill scrounge up someone willing to do a brother in law job, but winter and the rainy season is coming. The trailer is not all that bad, but was stored near the ocean so has that sort of rust on it. Hard to tell how much exactly as the trailer was originally painted red..shrug.

Chuckle..the bed has internal smooth sides, but the ends are pocketed. So I cut my 1" plywood to 1/2 the bed width (5'x12') sheets per Leighs most excellent suggestion and then cut them to .25 less the total inside length of the pockets. I then stuck one end into the pocket at the rear of the trailer, and strung a rope around the plywood about

1/3 the way towards that pocket, and lifted it with the forklift. I then stood on the other end and as the plywood bowed, my weight allowed me to stab the other end into the far pocket. I then had a fellow drop the forks and it went flat, with both ends neatly in the pocket. I repeated for the other half and voila..very neatly stuck in the pockets, the center seam is straight and tight. I used the forklift to pull the rope back out as it was wedged in pretty good.

The open sides are 13" tall, so the remaining strips cut from the full sheets are to be trimmed to the proper width, and will be bolted to the open side trusses and this will enclose the trailer, adding strengh and keeping Stuff from bouncing out.

Im trying to figure out a good way to add a bit more strength to the front rail, to allow me to mount a winch or big D ring to attach a ComeAlong to, to pull Stuff up into the trailer. I may..may also weld in a longitudnal stringer as there are a couple larger than I like open places in the frame that are over the tilt portion. I didnt notice them until I tilted the trailer this afternoon. Shrug..that 1" ply is tough stuff, but Id hate for it to carry a load that might go through in the distant future.

Anyone know how difficult it is to retrofit a stock axle with electric brakes? Ive had to do panic braking on LA freeways, and even my lil box trailer, with a load tended to push my pickup sideways. Something Ive been thinking about..... Shrug.

The trailer has a crank up landing gear welded up in the V next to the hitch, and somewhere in the past it had been dragged on something and bent backwards, so I chained up to the rear of the trailer and used a come along to bend it back into place. Only problem with it being there is it doesnt allow me to open the tailgate of the pickup. I need to find one of those folding ones that fold horizontally next to the tounge. Ive had trailers (boat usually) that wouldnt allow the tailgate down..and it drove me crazy.

Next thing to do is figure out what the 5 lug bolt pattern is, and get a spare tire and wheel. Ill weld a bracket on the side near the fenders and mount it there. Thing is perfectly balanced. I can pick up the tounge one handed and move it around easily, so would like to keep it balanced. I want to mount a small tool box also, to keep the tiedowns and chain binders and whatnot in, so keeping it balanced is pretty important, while not making it look like a gypsy wagon , else Id simply mount a crossbed pickup box on the tounge end. Gunner

"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child - miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosphy of sniveling brats." -- P.J. O'Rourke

Sounds like you'll not often be removing the sides for side loading. We used stake pockets to make the sides easily removable. I welded a receiver tube on the side of the trailer and welded up a spare tire mount with a suitable insert. To remove spare for side loading, just pull pin and the spare and mount is out of the way in 2 seconds with no tools.

On Sun, 12 Sep 2004 09:09:07 GMT, Gunner calmly ranted:

Self-employed and in the Famine stage of Feast or Famine, of course.

In the interim, HF has a 50 lb. sandblaster on sale for $40 right now. I got the catalog yesterday.

Bwahahaha! Rain in SoCal? OK, it drizzles a bit from late Nov. through Feb.

Near the ocean? My F-150 spent a week at the seaside (Carlsbad) while being repainted (Well, the half that Ford paid for, anyway.) All the trim came back corroded and I could see visible rust on the frame which wasn't there the week before. I was absolutely amazed at how corrosive salt air was in such a short time.

Bueno.

HF often has their boat winches on sale for $10-15, and one of those should do the job. Weld on a pair of brackets and bolt 'er on.

Um, not even with the paneling removed?!? You weren't paying attention. It would have been much easier then. ;)

Grok that.

I've never done it but have seen the bolt-on kits (eons ago). If your stub axles are bolt-on, the backing plate/hub/stub can be replaced.

Sheetmetal is easy to cut. Just put a couple holes in the tailgate to let the jack comes through and you're done! BTW, tongue is spelled "tongue". Yeah, backing things around is much easier with the gate down. You might want a ball and hitch on the front of the truck, too. That makes stabbing the trailer into a little hole much, much easier.

I'd see if I could mount the box and spare just in front of the wheels if it were mine, but leave enough space to get the holddown straps/hardware between it and the wheel/box. It would give you the least tongue weight (though you want 100+ lbs. when you're on the road). And I'd use a wheeled swing-away trailer jack. You can buy those, which bolt on, from places like J.C. Whitney for $50, or HF for $20 or for $1+ on Ebay. =:0

Have you read "Imperial Hubris" yet? My library has me 6th of 17 on the waiting list now.

------------------------------------------------------------- give me The Luxuries Of Life *

i can live without the necessities * 2 Tee collections online

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Gunner,

Electric brakes are easy to retrofit to most trailer axles. Around here there is a trailer shop that specializes in smaller trailers and have electric brake kits that include backing plates, activating electromagnets, pads etc already setup on the backing plates. Just remove old backing plate and bolt on new backing plate and run wires Only thing to watch out for on installation is to make sure the wire can't chafe on anything.

Get the controller with the manual brake activation as well. If your trailer starts weaving behind you due to ruts in the road etc you can spike the trailer brakes to straighten it out. (Lots of roads in AZ have serious rig ruts and if your trailer axle width isn't right it can get away from you.)

Watch the balance point of the trailer. You always want more weight on the hitch side of things. Again you can get the "death weave" going and the weight behind the axle increases the problem.

Saw a person towing a 30' party barge behind a Suburban on a single axle trailer. Watched them flip it during rush hour on a 6 lane wide freeway and blocked all lanes doing it. If he had electric brakes he could have saved it. (That and what the H*ll was he towing such a large boat on a single axle trailer behind a rather light for the job Suburban at 65+ mph.)

Bart D. Hull snipped-for-privacy@inficad.com Tempe, Arizona

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for my Subaru Engine Conversion Check Tango II I'm building.

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Gunner wrote:

I hope the tire shop found you a set of good used take-offs - good tires cheap for trailers. You can get new "ST" trailer tires with extra anti-ozone compounds in the sidewalls, but for a trailer that will sit much of the time they'll still rot out before they wear out, so car take-offs with tread left are just fine. Keep them till you start seeing weather-checking, then chuck them.

If you are going to the trouble of painting, treat the rust first or it'll pop right back out. As a minimum I would get a needle scaler or a 4" grinder with a knotted brush, or something to knock the big surface rust off, then use a rust converter before rusty metal primer. It will come back again, but not nearly as fast.

Do you have an old High-Lift mechanical jack around? (Make a few brackets to fix it in position.) Or a big chunk of ballscrew and a nut, and a Heim Joint for the other end? (Make a screw jack that can control both up and down.) "Slick" would be a 12V deep cycle battery,

12V hydraulic power pack and a double-action cylinder. And you can find another cylinder to replace the tongue jack if you want to get lazy.

If the axle stubs have the flanges for the brake backing plates on them, its a matter of finding and slapping on the right parts. Any good trailer supply store can look at them and know in 15 seconds. If it doesn't have the flanges to mount the brakes on, you'll have to cut out and change the spindles.

Harbor Fr(e)ight. They always have one style or another on sale, including the swivel-on-a-2"-spindle style that folds flat.

As someone said, make the spare tire mount on a standard 2" square hitch receiver and pin so it slides off for odd loading situations. The slick trick I've seen is, when you find out what size the axle and spindles are, order a complete set as a pre-assembled unit - hub, lug bolts or studs & nuts, wheel bearings, grease seals, and spindle. NAPA has a page of these standard hubs in their PSA catalogs - write down all the casting numbers, or take the hub in with you.

Weld that spare tire mounting arm up with the spindle and hub to hold the tire (big tack welds from the mounting arm to the spindle so they can be cut off easier later, not full beads), and if you ever shear the lug bolts or spin a wheel bearing and trash the hub or spindle (or both), you are always carrying a complete set of spare parts with you all ready to go... ;-)

(Some Assembly Required - 'Hot Wrench' not included.)

This works great on boat trailers with a long tongue where you can rig it up at the right height for a "driveway drag wheel" that will easily spin and roll you over the lip. Just keep some momentum in case it lifts the back tires of the car off the ground...

-->--

Been there..Still there..shrug.

I think Ill simply prime and paint. I dont have the room or facility to dump a few hundred pounds of sand on the property.

Average rainfall where I live is 4.3" a year. So far we have had

2.8"

Ayup.

I want to rienforce the front rail first. Id had to have something snag and bend the rail inwards. Ill hunt around for a oilfield pump barrel. I dont thing that will bend..

Sigh..I had to get it out of Leighs yard and he was closed for the day..and I had 2 more service calls to make. I got home at around 1am Friday night. And Leigh..oddly enough..doesnt own a welder.

Ill google it.

Id not thought of HF or ebay for the swing away jacks. Thanks!

Nope..not yet. Im way behind, myself. And Im trying to get some Stuff together for the Visailia metalworking show.

Im waiting to see if my offer is accepted with a company that is surplusing out a lot of stuff..things like (8) near new Bison 6" chucks..Hardinge tooling and chucks, about 20 Delta Drill presses, an Electric Pipe threader (for myself), 2 Logan 14" lathes..the usual stuff.

The 5 small rotary tables might be sellable as well....

Ive got about 50lbs of keyway cutters I may stick in a bin and put "$1.00 each" sign on.. The usual Stuff.....bunch of 30 taper tooling..

Its been in the low 105F during the day the last couple days..and Ive not been able to spend a whole lot of time out in the shop until after dark. The heart issue seems to have done something to my ability to deal with the heat. Or its the meds. Shrug.

You really need to come down sometime and go through the Stuff.

Gunner

"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child - miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosphy of sniveling brats." -- P.J. O'Rourke

Who cares?! Dig a hole in the desert, line with plasic, when finished shove dirt back into hole...

It's surprising how many problems can be solved with an appropriately sized hole in the ground! ;-)

Thanks Bart. Ill certainly check into it.

Gunner

"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child - miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosphy of sniveling brats." -- P.J. O'Rourke