Refurbishing a Trailer Part I

Many years ago while out in the desert north of Florence we found an abandoned trailer. That was about 6 or 7 years ago. The trailer had been out there for probably 10 or more years. It was barely half a mile from the nearest dirt road. Someone had loaded it with junk, drove it out there and just left it.

Over time many people had shot the wooden sides full of holes and pack rats had built a nest in it. The tires were flat and it was rather rusty. I would like to show a picture of it but it appears we never took one.

We had thought about dragging it back to Phoenix and rebuilding it, but did not have a way to do so. Recently Chris had bought a trailer and last year he drove out there and picked it up. He took it back to his house and removed the wood and "axle"

and did a bit of clean up of it. This year he brought it over to my house and we have been working on it every weekend.

 We began by removing the old brackets for the leaf springs

Then cleaned up the steel.

 

 

 

 

 The old tongue and the front of the trailer were bent.

So we removed it.

 Cut the Steel near the front of the frame to bend the tongue back up. Then welded a piece of steel in place to strengthen it. We did this on both sides.

 We welded a new piece of 2x2 steel in place of the old tongue.

  

And bolted on a new hitch.