Dump wagon build

[CDN Farm Boy]

I have a 2 wheel cart made from the back half of an old hay wagon that I've been using to clean things up around the place. I always thought about converting it to a dump trailer. Earlier this fall I salvaged a few loads of logs out of a burn pile from some land clearing down the road and had me second guessing my plan. What a pain to unhook, load it with the tractor, then rehook to drive home while trying to maintain enough tongue weight. Then more pain to unhook and unload with the tractor. While I can't get around the hooking and unhooking since I only have one tractor, a wagon makes much more sense then I don't have to worry about balancing the load which is the biggest problem.

 

[CDN Farm Boy]

Picked up a used 5 ton wagon frame and ordered a few lengths of tubing



Shortened the reach as short as it would go giving me a deck area of 6' x 10'. Steering is a bit challenging with standard length tongue and such a short reach. Used 2 x 4 x .125 wall for the main rails and 2 x 2 x .125 for the cross pieces



Mounting the 4" x 30" stroke cyl. A 36" would have been nicer but I got this one at a great price.






Filled the body of the cyl with hyd fluid before attaching the hose to help with the bleeding process. Success. It goes just a hair past 45°. If I'd have had the 36" stroke cyl, I could have gotten 60° out of it but it is what it is. Also worth noting, I built my ballast barrel with this wagon in mind. I never had one before, just always had the BH on or mounted an implement for weight. Loading the logs at the neighbour's was a bit fun with no rear weight. Mount points are as low as possible on the barrel to be able to lift it high enough to still hitch the wagon to the draw bar under it. Down side is I have to set it on some 8x8 blocks to unhook it but that's a price I'm willing to pay.

 

[CDN Farm Boy]

2x8 spruce will be used for the floor and I've got uprights welded in place to drop in some planks to make the sides and front. No tailgate yet, I'll worry about that next summer when I tear it apart to paint. Tomorrow or New Years day I'll get it pulled back out to install the wood. Right now it's being used as a bench for building a firewood bucket and rebuilding my newly acquired wood splitter.

 

[rswyan]

Lookin' good :thumbsup:

Duuno what you plan on hauling/dumping with it, but you might wanna consider adding some triangular corner gussets in the four corners to reduce racking of the frame when you go to dump it ...

 

[Rustyiron]

That should be real handy! If it were mine, I would "tie" quite a few more X-members to that cyl. Ideally, making a triangle to the rear corners. There is a hole lot of stress (rearward) until the load is up to 25 deg.. or so, then it becomes more of a vertical lift. If I'm looking at your pic's right, you only have 3 cross members with a rather light wall thickness & dimension for the task being asked of them (while dumping) especially at 6' long. Might be fine for a few logs, but if your anything like me, eventually you'll "freight" that wagon with a huge load of dirt or gravel! Nice build!

 

[roadhunter]

Nice work. That will be extremely useful.

 

[CDN Farm Boy]

Lookin' good :thumbsup:

Duuno what you plan on hauling/dumping with it, but you might wanna consider adding some triangular corner gussets in the four corners to reduce racking of the frame when you go to dump it ...

Mostly logs & brush but I'm sure it will get used for some dirt/gravel at some points too

That should be real handy! If it were mine, I would "tie" quite a few more X-members to that cyl. Ideally, making a triangle to the rear corners. There is a hole lot of stress (rearward) until the load is up to 25 deg.. or so, then it becomes more of a vertical lift. If I'm looking at your pic's right, you only have 3 cross members with a rather light wall thickness & dimension for the task being asked of them (while dumping) especially at 6' long. Might be fine for a few logs, but if your anything like me, eventually you'll "freight" that wagon with a huge load of dirt or gravel! Nice build!

I'm hoping so! Effective length of the x-members is only 38" between the main rails but I see your point about the forces. I'm definitely more of "load it to the max" kind of guy. I'd thought about braces back to the corner as you mention but I'm trying to beat the return of snow to cut some standing dead off the neighbour's fence lines so I left them out. Probably a wise idea to take the hour or so and put them in now before I bend something.

 

[kiotiken]

Wow, very nice, I love it. I'm a big fan of triangles, set the saw on a 45 and start cutting! That thing is big enough to hold about 3 yards of dirt or gravel, now you just need to make sure it's strong enough. That's going to be very useful.

 

[Thomas]

Well done,I see lots of use ahead.

 

[CDN Farm Boy]

Braces added