Beefing up a trailer, questions...

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Against my better judgment I agreed to help a friend beef up a trailer.The story is he bought this trailer for a song. The previous owner used it to carry around 3 ATV's plus camping gear all over the western US. My friend wants to use it to cart around a motorcycle. After he got it home he noticed the neck was bent and asked me to 'beef it up'. After close inspection we found out that at one point the neck was stitch welded and right around this weld there is a bend. Hard to tell if this happened before or after the weld. See the first few pictures. I'm fairly inexperienced fabricator and initially told him I didn't want to touch it. After a lot of persuasion he got me take another look at it. I only agreed to add material and not remove or change anything existing. Since the previous owner tested it's current state pretty well I figure I can't screw it up that bad just by adding more steel. Picture 1: What things look like when I got the trailer. Note the bend in the neck.Picture 2: Close up of the area that's bent. Notice the suspect weld. Picture 3: My solution. A frame welded and bolted to existing structure.Picture 4+5: Close up of welds Attached Images
Reply:And the final picture as it sits now. I plan on adding another cross brace below the hitch connecting the two pieces of tubing and hitch on the bottom. So question for those with more experience: will my beefed up A-frame help this trailer? Have I done anything that will make this trailer worse than it was before? How should I make attachments for the chain (had to cut the old ones off)?BTW this is 1.5x3x1/4 inch wall tubing, 1/4 inch plate for bolted parts, 3/8 inch plate for carry over piece, all welded together using my MM175 turned all the way up. Attached ImagesLast edited by slagmatic; 03-24-2010 at 10:20 PM.
Reply:Beefing up a trailer, questions... --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Against my better judgment I agreed to help a friend beef up a trailer.The story is he bought this trailer for a song.
Reply:You just fooked yourself (or your buddy) when it comes time to replace the coupler.My name's not Jim....
Reply:Yeah, that's just a bit more steel in the trailer now.  btw, Danny, good chuckle.    song - blues at the crossroads  Yeah, changing the coupler will be a bit more work now.  If you have the welds fused in nicely (hard to tell from here) then it generally gets a thumbs-up.  A 175-class machine in GMAW -can- be OK or a little light for short-circuit MIG on 1/4 inch material.It could have been done differently several ways, but your's doesn't look bad at all.Those bolts are Grade 8 ones, right?  nudge-nudge-wink-wink.  And the nuts too, right?  And they are torqued up nicely, right?  Maybe some thread-locking goop (aka LockTite) on them, right?  Cause all (or most anyway) of the tongue loads are going in single-shear through those bolts.And the structure they attach to on the existing part of the trailer is thick enough to have the bolts and the tongue loads going into and through it, right?  The best laid schemes ... Gang oft agley ...
Reply:It definetly helped but it could have been done a bit easier and without making the hitch replacement hard.The diagonal pieces could have been made out of something a bit lighter, 2 x 2 x 1/4 angle for example. Instead of running them to the front of the trailer where you have them move them outboard to the outer edge of the trailer and catch a couple of the bunks underneath the deck. Cut them at an angle so there is one on each side of the tongue, have a look at the attached screenshot to see what I mean.....Mike Attached Images
Reply:That original tongue looks awful long to me in the picts. I wonder if someone cut the trailer down at some point from the open square tube on the top rails, or if they cut the original tongue off and it was originally designed similar to what Mrmikey posted. The corrugated roof deck material for the trailer floor is one I haven't seen before. .No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth! Ronald Reagan
Reply:Originally Posted by MoonRiseThose bolts are Grade 8 ones, right?  nudge-nudge-wink-wink.  And the nuts too, right?  And they are torqued up nicely, right?  Maybe some thread-locking goop (aka LockTite) on them, right?  Cause all (or most anyway) of the tongue loads are going in single-shear through those bolts.And the structure they attach to on the existing part of the trailer is thick enough to have the bolts and the tongue loads going into and through it, right?
Reply:Thanks for the comments. MoonRise:-no they are not grade 8. -I don't think there is a lot of sheer force there. I think the bottom set of bolts will see tension if anything. -I did use some red locktite and torqued the nuts down really well.-The bolts attach to a part of the trailer that is the original main frame and is 2x4x1/4 tube. Bostimjdm: I seriously doubt he'll ever replace the coupling or even need to with the amount of use this trailer sees. If he does all he needs to do is cut the cross bracket I made and install a new one with the new coupling, really not much harder than before (notice it was welded and not bolted before I got to it). Stircrazy: The reason I made the rear end bolt on is simply so I could weld it in the flat position. My little MM175 is on the small side for the 1/4 stuff and I'm just not a good enough welder to feel good about vertical welds at the limit of the machine. Also the metal I would be welding to on the frame is not in the best quality, so over all I just felt better about the bolts. BTW this was welded with .030 cause it's what I have on hand. Ideally I would have gone with a bigger wire and I think my MM175 would have done even better, but I feel pretty good about the welds now. Mrmikey: that is a good idea and originally I was going to do something very similar to your sketch. But after having a closer look I learned this trailer was originally a narrow box frame and at some point someone 'attached' the wider deck on top. To see the quality of the top deck check out these pictures. Obviously attaching anything to the deck part was out of the question. Attached ImagesLast edited by slagmatic; 03-25-2010 at 10:54 AM.
Reply:Originally Posted by tanglediverso I find a snug fitting round bar for each chain, usually an old U-bolt. I put one on each side. Any round bar should do, you will normally weld these overhead, so keep to one side to avoid getting burned just in case something hot drips out.
Reply:a pressure treated deck would be nice . i do A LOT of work on trailers and ill tell you a secret.grade8 bolts are indeed strong but when they do fail they break, a grade 5, although not as ultimately strong, will yield and bend much more.had a problem with a dump truck where the bolts holding the spring pack on pass side kept breaking clean of twice a day because of a bad twist in the frame. tired of replacing bolts(grade8), we decided to use a 5.it eventually broke to but it bent quite a bit first.instead of replacing 2a day we went two days on the5 before it gave up.we were running sand to build up a road in the woods.lincoln weld pak 100 hdlincoln ranger 225gxt ac/dcoxy/acetylenepuroxcw202 victor fc100harris model 85harrismodel 16oxweld w24roxweld w17