So a friend wanted to borrow the trailer to support some excavation he was doing. He didn't want to use a tractor to dump, so he asked if he could add a 12v hydraulic system off an old dump trailer he had. I was reluctant as he has a habit of cobbling things together in a hurry, but he did a pretty decent job and only welded on the one plate to hold the pump (which fit conveniently under the box) and drilled a couple of holes for the quick connect wiring (power supply and pump controls). The trailer doesn't have much room to mount a battery out of the way anywhere and I told him I didn't want it outside the tongue as I sometimes like to jackknife it. So he decided to use tow vehicle power via booster cables that quick connect to the trailer through a plow harness power supply. It works perfectly with my Kubota as the battery is readily accessible. A battery could always be temporarily mounted to the tongue and he maintained the existing hydraulic hoses and couplers on the trailer if I ever want to hook it to a tractor. The only thing I'd like to see different is the "return" line coming from the cylinder. It's just dead ended with a "vent" that seems to weep a tiny bit of oil (as it's a single action pump). I would've maybe drilled into the hydraulic tank and used a couple to feed it back into there. It works well though and raises fast and comes down relatively good by gravity.
