Need advice regarding a farm equipment repair.

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A friend of my wife's owns a small hobby farm and has a Carver Super C feed wagon. There is a gate on each side that can be lowered to block the animals from the feed troughs or raised to let them at the feed or when the trailer is being towed.He was towing it out a few weeks ago to have it filled and hit a tree in his (very narrow) driveway with the right-hand side gate which was in the "up" position for travel. The arms (one upper and one lower, one pair per end) are made of 1 3/4" square tube that is ~ 1/8" thick. There are also 2" wide x 22" long x 1/4" thick flat pieces that hinge on bolts and connect the upper and lower arms. The arms connect from the feed wagon to the gate portion that runs parallel to the trailer body.He bent and/or broke all four of the square tube arms on that side when they bent back against the trailer (on the front end) and a few guide brackets (on the rear). He asked me if I would tackle the repair job, so I looked at it and emailed him my recommendation that I would replace all of the square tube to ensure the strength of the assembly, as well as the asthetics. He got back to me and asked if I could just straighten the pieces and make it functional.I'm thinking that I could remove the arms, heat and beat them back into relatively linear shape, lay some beads on the broken (more cracked than anything) pieces, then box the arms on each side of the bends/breaks with flat steel pieces (like you would box a car frame) and reassemble everything. I think I could strengthen all of the square tube pieces enough to be confident that they would support the gate when the assembly is locked in the upright position (when most of the weight of the gate is supported by the square tube).Anyhow, I just wanted to see if anyone had any advice for me before I jump into this. I won't be doing the job for a few weeks, but I need to get everything together that I'll need to complete the job.Below is a link to some photos of the feeder. The last picture is of my "assistant" who helped me while I was checking out the job.Thanks,Davehttp://www.angelfire.com/blog/stroke...ndex.album?i=0Last edited by stroker_dave; 11-02-2006 at 02:25 PM.
Reply:It looks like you might be able to save some of the less severely damaged stuf, but relpace anything you can't easily straighten or fix with a weld. Box tubing isn't that expensive, and time is money if you have to repair versus replace it.  From the pics, one tube is sheared and has to be replaced, the others look like you can make them up like you said. Let us know how you go, and we always love pics, especially high res ones like these where we can zoom in some. Post some more of the repair if you have time, and good luck!If you don't have the time to do it right, then you definitely don't have the time to do it over.