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Service trailer came early boys

Eh rather not have a bunch of padlocks bouncing on the side of the service box.

Measurement notes. Trailer deck is 29in, 23in from the ground to the bottom of the frame, and frame is 6in C channel.
 
Just needed a bunch of cleaning and parts lubed up

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Wheel well is almost the perfect size for the lathe, not quite enough room for it to slide in under the bed completely so I'll notch the bed floor some to take care of that. Building a slide out tray for the lathe to sit on.

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Agreed not at all common to have a lathe on a trailer. Have heard of a handful but not many. One day I'd love to get one of those massive lathes like a 3ft x 15ft or so, would need it's own dedicated trailer though hahaha.

Went ahead and removed the lower locking arm from the front door today, don't have to angle it anymore to get closed.

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Curiosity got the better of me today

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If the front boxes are cut to clear the neck reinforcements the beds can move 16in forward which nearly eliminates the current 19.5in that the rear bed is hanging off of the trailer.

Went ahead and notched the bed floor to make room for the lathe. Now it completely fits nice and snug in it's compartment.


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I thought it would look more tacky with both beds on there but it's not as bad as I expected. Make doors for the remaining wheel wells, slide the boxes all the way forward, little bit of sheet metal work followed by paint and it would look alot better.

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btfarm said:
When fully loaded and ready for work that is gonna be mighty heavy.
Click to expand...

Yea, I'm expecting it to be up around 7-8k pounds. The trailer is built out of 6" C channel, 10.5 lbs per ft comes out to roughly 600 lbs for the main frame. Figure between the gussets/axles/suspension/rub rails/wooden deck it's about 2000-2500 lbs for the trailer. Structural rating of C channel in that size is enough according to the books. Each bed is roughly 1000 lbs estimating so figuring 2000 lbs for the pair. Leaves 3500 lbs at most available for tools/equipment which should be fine. If need be the wooden deck of the trailer and the diamond plate center sections from each bed can be removed to drop the weight some.

Weight estimates on each bed could be high. The little forklift picked up the 11ft bed loaded with tools and no complaints even though the center of the weight was out past the tips of the forks.

If it's above 8400 lbs (pair of 3500 rated axles and 20% tongue weight transfer) then I'll probably get rid of the welder and go with a 'premier power welder' mounted on the truck.
 
More difficult than expected. Cleaned up the cuts then dragged the front bed all the way up to the neck. Front of that service bed and the gooseneck were slightly tweaked which required some heat on the neck and use of the come along to get everything right. Then did a little bit of welding to secure the front bed into position.

After that dropped the trailer all the way down, removed the ladder rack, and tossed the welder in. The little 4500 lb winch will be coming out soon, probably put it in the rear of the k5.

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Learned something today looking up 14k rated gooseneck flatbed trailers, the lowboys use the same size C channel that this trailer is (guessing it's a heavier weight steel). Maybe it's not as light duty of a flatbed as I thought.
 
Wrecker is currently gone for a few days and I've been spending some time on the trailer again. Being that it's heavier duty than I thought, going to set it up with a rolling tailboard so it can be used as a bigger version of the flatbed that was on my pickup. Relatively cheap addition that opens up a lot of versatility.

Today was spent plumbing up the waste oil filtration. First 3 filters are all water separators, last one is a sub 5 micron. Have a roughly 55 gallon tank sitting in the bed, feed it a little air pressure to move things through the filters then into the vehicles. The drain pan gets stored in this box as well.

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Finally getting around to diagnosing and soon repairing the trailer problems. Was hoping to reuse the 1 spindle that didn't have a hub on it but that's not gonna happen. Ended up pulling the threads off when putting a nut on and the outer bearing surface is damaged beyond a good repair. All the spindle measurements match up with those for a 5-6k rated axle which is a pleasant surprise. Can get a new spindle without brakes for $35, or a EZ lube with brake capability at just over $70. Want to have brakes on both axles so figure I'll go that route.

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Crudely cut out the center part of the angle iron bumper. Going to use some 4" C channel to tie the beds together underneath, serve as the skid frame.

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After some work the second bed is now moved up where it should be. Glimpse of the second skid planned for the trailer.

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Been awhile and finally doing some stuff to the service bed again. Picked up a cheap little band saw and plasma cutter, needed a place to put them. Making the tray slide out and a fold down door, picked up enough metal to finish the lathe side as well.

Sold the enclosed semi trailer and temporarily threw the stuff under this trailer.

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A lightweight crane can be useful, I did a diy one years ago with a winch. With the k5 out of pic, what about get 2 pieces of heaviest pipe you can get your hands on one that. Fits inside the other. Put it on whatever corner you work near.

Use a piece underneath as a pin in place leg, that comes out easy for travel and holds weight in use. Snag some HD rec tubing or I beam for the arm.
Rig it so the winch is on a drawbar plugging into base of crane where it swivels with base outer pipe. If you do swing side pulleys at top and end of crane it is easy to remove winch to put it onto pickup for offroading or a flatbed trailer for loading a car.
An old fly wheel and starter to handle rotating, but put on a couple ballast resistors to cut power WAY down. Nice slow rotation. Old 24 volt starter even better.
I just used a collapsible arm that had a couple different positions for angle until I found a smokin deal on a long hydraulic ram.
Ended up selling the crane minus the winch for $2500 when it was over.
Later I bought the harbor freight in bed pickup crane. Made a receiver mount with support leg for it. When the hand crank unit fails, a 4 wheeler winch will take its place. That free swinging design to load stuff in is dangerous- don’t do that! Have to have something to rotate it. Hand ratcheting system or something.

Also for the gear stored under the old wheel wells, if you can do slide out racks like a ratpack uses- that would make them easy to use.

Hand spools for winding welding cables is nice also. Just pipe in pipe and plate ends. Unplug to roll up. Just make sure they are isolated from each other and trailer frame. I used a barrel cut in half to hinge closed to protect them from weather and thieves. Made a good spot to hold my gloves,leather and hood also right there between reels.

Good to see progress.
 
Will L. said:
A lightweight crane can be useful, I did a diy one years ago with a winch. With the k5 out of pic, what about get 2 pieces of heaviest pipe you can get your hands on one that. Fits inside the other. Put it on whatever corner you work near.

Use a piece underneath as a pin in place leg, that comes out easy for travel and holds weight in use. Snag some HD rec tubing or I beam for the arm.
Rig it so the winch is on a drawbar plugging into base of crane where it swivels with base outer pipe. If you do swing side pulleys at top and end of crane it is easy to remove winch to put it onto pickup for offroading or a flatbed trailer for loading a car.
An old fly wheel and starter to handle rotating, but put on a couple ballast resistors to cut power WAY down. Nice slow rotation. Old 24 volt starter even better.
I just used a collapsible arm that had a couple different positions for angle until I found a smokin deal on a long hydraulic ram.
Ended up selling the crane minus the winch for $2500 when it was over.
Later I bought the harbor freight in bed pickup crane. Made a receiver mount with support leg for it. When the hand crank unit fails, a 4 wheeler winch will take its place. That free swinging design to load stuff in is dangerous- don’t do that! Have to have something to rotate it. Hand ratcheting system or something.

Also for the gear stored under the old wheel wells, if you can do slide out racks like a ratpack uses- that would make them easy to use.

Hand spools for winding welding cables is nice also. Just pipe in pipe and plate ends. Unplug to roll up. Just make sure they are isolated from each other and trailer frame. I used a barrel cut in half to hinge closed to protect them from weather and thieves. Made a good spot to hold my gloves,leather and hood also right there between reels.

Good to see progress.
Click to expand...

Had fun over the summer, but the limited income put a few month pause on the crew cab and this trailer haha. Bought a little 2wd Nissan pickup for daily driver duty after the k5 got totaled.

The height/weight of the lathe and band saw will make their drawers pretty short, about 18" long. Just long enough to slide the equipment out from the box to give full room to operate them (band saw is a vertical/horizontal unit).

However the space between the boxes where the truck frame usually sits, that's alot of empty space now. a ratpack type slide there would take advantage of the space extremely well. It's roughly 5ft wide, 11ft long, 18in (ish) tall space under just the rear bed. Plus the space up in the bed isn't really being used right now either.


Picked up a little 4k diesel generator, small air compressor, and a mig/flux core welder as well.
 
I thought about building a corner mount crane system, but instead of using a pipe inside a pipe, use a spindle end from a 8 bolt trailer axle, then using the 8 bolt hub and bearings, fastening the mast pipe to the hubs lug studs. That would be one that would absolutely need the starter ring and a pinion to turn it with.
 
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