Rebuilding old 16 ft utility, couple questions?

tallyho8 · Jul 26, 2007

I have always used pt lumber on my trailers with no problems after many years. If the new ACQ is more corrosive I think it would be easy enough to put strips of tarpaper between the wood and steel.

gemini5362 · Jul 27, 2007

tallyho8 said:
I have always used pt lumber on my trailers with no problems after many years. If the new ACQ is more corrosive I think it would be easy enough to put strips of tarpaper between the wood and steel.

I do know that there is a warning on the treated lumber I purchased for my garage project. It says to use stainless steel or galvanized fasteners on it.

Diamondpilot · Jul 27, 2007

Me and my neighbor bought identical 16' tandem axle utility trailers. They have brakes, spare tire, and mine has a winch that I added. We got them at the same time for $850 each, but that was 5 years ago. Anyway they had normal lumber on them, something like 2x12's They used no screws, just a "c" channel at the front and back of the trailer to act as a pocket. I store my trailer in my barn, my neighbor stores his outside. The wood was painted and mine is in great shape still. We had to replace the lumber last summer on his. We just used two pry bars mid way down the boards to pop them out and then flexed them slightly to replace them with treated lumber. The "c" channel cups seem to work good for us but with no bolts and the trailer unloaded the wood does bounce and make a racket. The other side of the coin is if it had tons of bolts or screws you may have to drill or cut them out when it comes time to replace the boards.

Chris

scott_vt · Jul 27, 2007

Afternoon Bob,
Looks like your doing a great job on a trailer slated for the scrap heap !

I found an old Snoco trailer a few years back that I bought cheap and fixed up. It had tandem axles but was smaller than your unit. I needed a smaller trailer to transport my 42 & 49 Farmalls. One of the axles was bent so I had to straighten that out, and I had a couple of leaf springs that were broken. I changed out the wheel bearings and put bearing buddies on each wheel for greasing purposes. The fenders needed to be straightened out and I painted the whole thing. This trailer was a tilt model, a little disconcerting driving up and then have the whole bed drop down

but I got used to it.

BobReeves · Jul 27, 2007

scott_vt said:
Afternoon Bob,
Looks like your doing a great job on a trailer slated for the scrap heap !

I found an old Snoco trailer a few years back that I bought cheap and fixed up. It had tandem axles but was smaller than your unit. I needed a smaller trailer to transport my 42 & 49 Farmalls. One of the axles was bent so I had to straighten that out, and I had a couple of leaf springs that were broken. I changed out the wheel bearings and put bearing buddies on each wheel for greasing purposes. The fenders needed to be straightened out and I painted the whole thing. This trailer was a tilt model, a little disconcerting driving up and then have the whole bed drop down but I got used to it.

Looks like a very handy sized trailer, have a buddy that has one sorta like that but single axel.. Real handy for transporting dead garden tractors and motorcycles. Would love to have a small tilt trailer, after rebuilding this one I am realizing that trailers aren't real difficult to build.. Maybe my next project will be a tilter...