New firewood trailer!

[NElogger]

Was in need of a dump trailer to make it faster to get back to cutting. And with the price of the commercial dump trailers I figured I'd be unloading by hand forever! While browsing CL I came across this, it was an F-450 truck and there was an engine fire and instead of rebuilding it the guy decided to make a trailer out of it. Let me know what you think and if you would add anything to it.

 

[VW Splitter]

I am liken it. Might could use some taller side rails. Heaping it on, you don't wanna loose it.

 

[NElogger]

That's what my plan is! Need to get a jack put on it and get a battery box built too. Gotta do some lookin around and find out if I can make the brakes work on it, the thing is pretty heavy by itself and it has the stock disc brakes on it. Don't know if that can be done but would be nice.

 

[Tenderfoot]

You can get an electric over hydraulic actuator and use the existing disk brakes. They run about $500-$600. Well worth it IMO.

 

[VW Splitter]

I would think trailer brakes would be very important. That thing loaded with wood would be heavy, hard to stop.

 

[cantoo]

I have 2 dump trailers but I would love one like that. My BIL has one from my FIL that was made from a gravel truck. We load the heck out of it and pull it with a tractor.

 

[NElogger]

Thanks for the replies! I'll definitely look into the electric over hydraulic actuator, glad you guys knew more about it than I did!

 

[Tenderfoot]

A surge brake actuator will be simpler and easier to install, but will (IMO) not be adequate for what that trailer will handle. You will need to wire up a 7 pin connector and get a brake controller aboard the tow vehicle. Trailer brakes are pretty important if you are towing with a 2nd gen ram. They have fairly weak (IMO) rear brakes and those drums fade easily.

 

[NElogger]

That's not my pickup that's the guy I bought it from. I have a 1993 F-250 that's custom built with 7 leafs and 3 overloads on each side. I also put a class 5 receiver on it.

 

[NElogger]

This is Ol' Red

 

[Tenderfoot]

Honestly, same deal with the brakes. The Fords I think are a little better but that may be because the Fords of those years Ive dealt with are maintained a little better. I think you can probably get away with a surge brake assembly on rural roads under 50 MPH. But electric over hydraulic will stop a lot better. Is Nebraska as flat as it is stereotyped? Probably get away with less brakes if you are both rural and flat. Here we deal with lots of short 10% grades and quite a few longer 3-5% ones. Can get hard on your brakes.


I used this write up when I built a trailer with a friend. Similar deal as what they say, but we used the existing brakes and most of the lines (pickup frame). He shopped around a bit for the best price. I think the higher pressure ones are for disc brakes and the lower pressures are for drum. Have to do more research.
https://www.etrailer.com/faq-adding-electric-over-hydraulic-disc-brakes.aspx

 

[NElogger]

Nebraska flat? Only if you're on the interstate. We have some pretty ridiculous hills around here, and the best place to find trees is in the hills it seems. I just got done reading that write up, definitely a good article. Definitely going to go with the electric over hydraulic for this trailer.

 

[Tenderfoot]

News to me. Always figured the mid west was fairly flat.

Glad to help out. That should be a really good trailer too. It will probably stay very nearly inside the tow vehicles track too. Probably will not get too stuck in fields either.

 

[NElogger]

Here is some of the smaller hills we have.

 

[Tenderfoot]

Thats quite pretty country. Probably good deer hunting there, no?

 

[NElogger]

There is a lot of great deer hunting here. People are starting to figure that out and leasing private ground just for the two weeks of rifle season. Definitely don't go wood cutting during that time, have ran into some people with rifles that, I'm pretty sure, don't know which end goes "bang" lol!

 

[Tenderfoot]

People been doing that in CT for years. But we have a damn near 3 month season. Killed more deer with a truck then a rifle though. Actually killed more things with a truck then anything else really. Lost count of the squirrels and groundhogs.

 

[NElogger]

Haha yeah same here. I'm pretty sure Dodge put cross hairs in the grill so I could line up better! Got 8 deer with the last dodge I owned gotta give it credit though the bumper never made it to the radiator!

 

[Tenderfoot]

Friend of mine has a SCLB 2wd 24 valve. Killed 3 cars, 4 deer, a stop sign, and two geese with it. After all his front end repairs I put a ranch hand on my F350. Have yet to hit anything yet with the new bumper though.

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

Wonder why it's so tall? We have 2 F450s, one has a Quigley 4x4 conversion, the other is 2wd. Neither are that tall.