$500 livestock trailer rebuild

[schmism]

As you may know I picked up a $500 livestock trailer. The goal was to have it road worthy by last weekend (i missed that date by one weekend) to bring some new animals home to the property.

I detailed my brake rebuild in a separate thread as that is really independent of the trailer type.

As you can see i have some rust to cut out and replace. The frame is structural steel that is sound. The part that makes up the livestock "house" is made of 14 gauge steel. either 14ga sq tube, or sheetmetal.

The part that was prioritized in getting it road worthy was the front. You can see the bottom of the round front is completely gone.

There is supposed to be a piece of (what i eventually figured out was) 2x1.25 (or so) angle that was bent in a curve that formed the bottom structure at the front. This piece seemed to be a link that helped tie the tongue to the trailer. The tongue seemed to rely on this curved L and front tin to really tie the tongue and front end of the trailer together.

I spent about an hr cutting out these sections of old rusty angle so i could fit the new stuff back into that corner.

Swag offroad sells a number of dies for the HF tubeing roller that allow you to roll virtually anything in the HF roller. This included a die set for rolling angle. Although the pic on his website does not match the product he sent me, i was able to accomplish what i needed. It took more time and was more frustrating not having a ~.125" thick slot as i was expecting based on pics on his website, I suppose i can machine them in the future if i ever have to do this again. Dies were ~$200.

sorry didnt take any pics of the in process bending of the angle.

That was what it looked like fri night. I was tired and out of time for that night so i figured it would take me an hr or so to weld on the 14ga sheetmetal to the front.

I have a 3 in one brake, shear, roll that i could have rolled my 14ga strip in to get the curve to closer match the front of the trailer, but i was out of time to dig it out of the back of the shop. So instead yesterday i was up first thing to get the the sheet metal got wrapped around the front and welded on. except it took more like 2 hrs to get everything done and loaded up.

The trailer pulled great. brake rebuild went fine, no hot hubs, no tire blowouts, brakes work although likely need some adjustment (do they self adjust like cars?)

Im shocked at how much more stable the trailer is with the front end rebuilt. there is a lot of structure in that front curve that the trailer shell relies on to stiffen everything up.

More updates as I tackle the sq tube ends, fenders, paint etc.

 

[STROIL]

Hey Schmism... looks like you've done really nice work on that trailer. I enjoyed reading your thread. You asked if the brakes self-adjust like drum car brakes do. (I'm assuming they are electric brakes???) Most electric trailer brakes do not self adjust and it is an important part of trailer ownership to periodically climb under and adjust them -- usually according to a reccomended schedule suggested by the particular mfr of brakes. There is ONE brand of electric brakes that are specifically designed to be self adjusting. THey are more expensive than standard electric brakes, but they propose to offer much better stopping distances than standard electric brakes (presumably because of the way they are constantly in optimum adjustment). One of the best overall trailer parts sources, especially for brake-related stuff, is e-trailer.com. They offer exceptional advice and service. Good luck with the rest of your rebuild. I live in St. Louis and own property outside Vandalia, Il., so I'm back and forth all the time. Maybe I'll see you trailer on the road sometime...

 

[schmism]

Our old property (which we still own but are renting) is at the location listed in my profile. I cant update it without being forced to update a bunch of other forum crap that was added well after i joined which i dont want to do, and we have left feedback saying so.

The point is our new property is in Peoria county. (as in peoria IL, but not inside the city proper) All my parts for the brake rebuilds came from E-trailer. Great source i agree!

I live in St. Louis and own property outside Vandalia, Il., so I'm back and forth all the time. Maybe I'll see you trailer on the road sometime...

 

[Diamondpilot]

Nice work. Good thing you are so handy.

Chris

 

[Willl]

Wow, that bending the angle piece came out nice.

No rippling in the inside lip (bottom lip) ?

 

[schmism]

Wow, that bending the angle piece came out nice.

No rippling in the inside lip (bottom lip) ?

not to speak of. it had a tendency to roll out of plane because the roller is so cheep (to much play) I used my shop press to bend the "other" bend back straight (or nearly) its REALLY hard to explain, h3ll it was hard to wrap your head around when your doing it because as soon as you take it out of the roller you loose all sense of which way you need to bend the steel to make it do what I wanted.

It was bent in 3 passes. once in the roller, then to the press to take twist etc out. back to roller... this pass put me close to finished product, twice as much time was spent at the press to take non-wanted bend, twist, roll out of the angle. it was test fit, I cut the ends off (one side was about 8" long the other about 2') and i guessed on the amount of bend id need on the last pass (not much) and it was close enough to make work.

both these operations need 2 people for the length of material i was working. It wasnt heavy, just awkward as h3ll and most of the time you were wanting to work it in a way that ment some end was sticking out behind you at nearly 90 deg and like 5' behind (think really long torque arm)