home made bale trailer

[Renze]

We had a customer, a drainage contractor, that was too tight to pay for a registration fee when he bought a new 2 axle trailer, 20 years ago, to pull behind his Landrover. Since a few years, all trailers above 750 kg need to be tagged and licensed.
Because this trailer was never registered and therefor had no chassis number, it could not get license plates. Customer got a fine for overloading his 750 kg trailer (everything with no license plates nowadays is concidered max. 750 kg by the cops) and in the end, he ordered a new trailer from us. (he is still tight, we built a new trailer but he insisted on transplanting the old axles and turntable to the new one, to cut cost)

Anyways, to make a long story short, i got myself a nice trailer deck of 6x2 meter, for only 25 euro. Later, i bought an undercarriage of an old manure spreader, with a walking tandem on 10-15 tires.

I am building a bale trailer out of it, by welding a bridge underneath the chassis, to beef it up from 2 ton to 6 ton.
Though this deck used to be a 2 axle turntable steered trailer with surge brakes, I chose to go with the walking tandem, and about 1000kg tongue load, for several reasons:
1000 kg tongue weight allows me to pull of with 2 bale wagons in the field, without damaging the sod from spinning tractor wheels, it gives easier control of the wagon if you back it up through a muddy, rutted field, and it is safer when there are no trailer brakes.
Also, i can build it lower because the wheels stay in the same position, and dont have to turn underneath the frame beams.

It has a deck height of 87 cm, so i can stack 4 rows of big silage or straw bales, and still be within the legal height limit.
Also its much easier when loading a wagon by hand, and a lower center of gravity makes it more stable.


The undercarriage is a walking tandem, from an old manure spreader. As soon as i brought this manure spreader home, i cut the body off and sold it to the scrap trader.
The tongue and axles are separated now, each individually mounted to the frame because of the longer wheelbase.

The original trailer had 185R13 tires, so i had to move the main frame beam closer together where the tandem is located, to make room for the much wider 10-15 tires.

The original chassis was built from square tube 80x80x3mm, way too light for my intended use. I built a space frame under it, with another lengthwise tube 80x50x4, and lots of gussets.

This afternoon i mounted the drawbar and took her for a ride in the spring sun, to take some photos.

[Renze]

again the photo of 3011 and bale trailer, just this time horizontally

Building the space frame from tubes and gussets is labour intensive, but it gives a lot of strength with little weight: With todays steel prices, every saving is welcome, and reducing the empty weight increases the payload, and transport efficiency.

I need to weld in some reinforcements here and there, and beef up the drawbar to be able to transfer the intended 1000kg tongue load to the tractor.
When its done, it will get a bituminous underbody coating, a new 18mm epoxy plywood floor, the deck side Zetor green paint, and the rims Zetor red paint.

[wushaw]

That is a beefy mid section you fabbed up there.....Cool

[chh]

Very neat looking job. It looks like it should serve you well.

[irwin]

Looks good Renze! Just a mention, I'm sure you took care of it already. In this pic there's a weld missing behind(?) the nearer wheel, bottom of the v shaped support square tube.

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/a...ler-afb006.jpg

Great project, better price.

[Renze]

Originally Posted by irwin

Looks good Renze! Just a mention, I'm sure you took care of it already. In this pic there's a weld missing behind(?) the nearer wheel, bottom of the v shaped support square tube.

Yes, i noticed that when uploading the photos... Missed it while making them
Will do that tonight after work.
.... Would that be what they call "photo welding" in the offshore industry ??

[Renze]

i did some work on my trailer again:
I took it out into the daylight, not just to make some good pictures for you guys, but also to get a better idea of what i was seeing was correct:

Yes i did see something: The right side is hanging down 2 inches... when moving the main beam aside to make room for the bigger wheels, i didnt weld it back straight. This is only a wagon to haul bales through the mud, but being a trailer builder by profession, this shouldnt be acceptable to me..

I decided to cut it and reweld it under tension. After i cut it, jacked the rear up and supported the front, the grinder slice didnt close... After i took a chain tensioner (normally used on lowdecks to secure 40 ton excavators) and spanned it to the max (the chain was so tight that slightly tapping a hammer against it, didnt even make it vibrate !!) the rear end was finally moving up a little.
I made 2 cuts, and welded them both. When the welds cool down they shrink a little, so this gave it a bit of extra tension after i stretched that chain tensioner to the max.

When measuring again, the difference in height is only 2 centimeter. This is acceptable to me, because you must know it before you see it.


In the rest of the photos, you can see i made a rear trailer hitch (to hook up another, turntable steered trailer behind it) and welded an extra longitudinal tube in the middle, to support the quite weak crossmembers.
I welded some tubes to accept the torsion forces of steering the tandem axles, and they also help overcome the weakest part of the frame: the bend above the walking tandem pivot shaft.

I hope to get it painted with bituminous silo paint this week, and put on a new deck of 18mm plywood, premium quality Finnish birch.

[irwin]

Very nice, thanks for taking the time to post pictures. and for explaining the process. looks great...

[KYErik]

Nice job on the trailer!

Just out of curiosity- in the 4th picture of the last set you posted, what type of roof covering does the house on the right have? The one that is covered with moss? It almost looks like a smooth roof, and the coloration is interesting... is it a multicolored slate?

[Renze]

Ha ha i was already expecting comments about the houses in the back ground, because they are quite Dutch and not what you'd see in America...

The house on the left is our neighbor's house. You might find that type of house elsewhere in the world.
The house on the right is our house, built in the traditional local style. it has a reed roof. The house was totally redone, with new windows, and partially a new roof, in 1986 when i was just a little kid.

At this time the reed is running on its last legs, it has surrendered to the elements of nature and is simply beginning to ROT. In 1986 the layer was between 22 and 25 centimeter (9 to 10 inches) but it deteriorates over time, depending on the amount of sun (to stop moss and dry it as soon as possible)
We have cut some big trees that kept the roof in the shade. This will give the new roof about 20 years more life expectancy.
Our neighbour, age 79, has the most traditional house/cattle barn in the area: his reed was renewed 5 years ago. It had been sitting since the 50's, because his house has no shadow trees nearby.

The reed layer contractor has been called last year, but he is a dying breed, and has more work than he can get done. We hope to get him in April, and we also hope to get some of the governmental subsidy on traditional reed roofs to take about 30% of the costs