Franken-ballast: expensive and poorly planned!

[4570Man]

I'd be way more worried about the trailer getting in the seat with me and the chains are too long to prevent that.

 

[Luke'sScreenName]

Good point. That's enough to justify my intention to continue to disregard the chains. :laughing:

 

[rustyshakelford]

The Franken-ballast has been working great.

Yesterday I was using it to move my 25ft gooseneck equipment trailer. Went to set it down and the ball wouldn't disengage like usual. Found out why....

View attachment 523226

This scary cold weld was part of the original Countyline trailer mover I built around. I know this was designed for low speed but still seems dangerous as heck.

I ground down and rewelded the nut.

Mind did the same thing if not slightly worse. 7 yards of dirt in my dump trailer behind a 100 hp Deere. Wrecked all the treated and broke the bolt. Going to weld a piece of 3/4" plate where the nut was, blow out a hole and weld the ball solid.

Good looking weight rack

Brett

 

[Luke'sScreenName]

Ya, that nut is going nowhere now! Lol.

Hope you didn't loose the trailer. That's a lot of unsupervised weight!

 

[Musdalen]

FWIW,
If you build your own ballast, have a plan for when you tip it over by accident and have to stand it up and maneuver it to where you can hitch up again. I did this just this weekend and the hitch receiver was useful for chaining up to the loader arms and moving it very carefully (not much weight on the rear end). If I had planned for this, I might have done things slightly differently (like mounted d-rings on each side or something like that).

 

[aczlan]

FWIW,
If you build your own ballast, have a plan for when you tip it over by accident and have to stand it up and maneuver it to where you can hitch up again. I did this just this weekend and the hitch receiver was useful for chaining up to the loader arms and moving it very carefully (not much weight on the rear end). If I had planned for this, I might have done things slightly differently (like mounted d-rings on each side or something like that).

When I built my ballast barrel, I left a piece of 2"x2" 3/16" angle sticking out of the top with a hole in it for a clevis to attach. That way, I have a good lifting point at the top of the barrel.

Aaron Z

 

[Luke'sScreenName]

FWIW,
If you build your own ballast, have a plan for when you tip it over by accident and have to stand it up and maneuver it to where you can hitch up again. I did this just this weekend and the hitch receiver was useful for chaining up to the loader arms and moving it very carefully (not much weight on the rear end). If I had planned for this, I might have done things slightly differently (like mounted d-rings on each side or something like that).

Yup, the skids on the bottom of mine got about 9" longer the first week. Guess why? :drink:

 

[mike69440]

Welded the snot out of the country line carry all I bought. Good idea to add weld to most of their products.

 

[Musdalen]

Were I to do it all over again, I would put steel (maybe not welded though) from the back edge of the carryall up to the top-link. That top link cross bar on mine is bending slightly. It takes more of a pounding than I though.