Box Trailer Rebuild

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Sort of car related. Just a short thread on the rebuild that me and my young bloke did on a little box trailer.
I was on the lookout for a cheap trailer for the young fella, as he was renovating a house with his girlfriend and was constantly having to borrow mine, which was fine but a fair inconvenience for him with the picking up and dropping off thing. A trailer of his own was a no brainer.
One evening I visited Holden202T’s place with some reference when I noticed he had purchased a shiny new trailer. The conversation steered towards his old little box trailer, and short story shorter, a deal was made to salvage the pre-loved caboose. Gotta love liquid currency!
As per the pics, she was a 5x4 angle iron frame with the lower frame box section made from 2 pieces of angle welded together, hardwood tongue & groove boards, eye springs with drop axle and Torana hubs/wheels, no guards, jockey wheel, and still regoed.

A pic of it in it's hayday. Thanx for the pic Sam!



Got her home and as soon as the sun came up we started to take note of where the repairs were needed.

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The original plan (Plan A) was to replace a few of the missing boards, patch up any rust, a quick coat of paint and timber oil and job done. To match the missing boards proved to be quite difficult, so we started pricing a new fit out of hardwood timber boards. That was turning out to be very expensive so a couple of beers later we decided to replace the wood with steel sheet.
So the boards came off, revealing more rust than was originally predicted.

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Enter Plan B. Started to cut up the frame and setting aside the good bits. Figured we should keep the drawbar, springs/axle, coupling, jockey wheel, rego, and build the whole body from scratch.

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A few days later I was out at Sam’s brother’s place dropping off Sam’s car float. He started telling me how their Grandfather originally bought/built the trailer many years ago, then their Dad did a rebuild on it, not sure of the timeline but it eventually was given to Sam as a birthday present! “Glad to see it going to a good home” he said…

Plan C…

Salvage all usable pieces using common sense. Anything rusted or out of shape goes. Stick with the sheet metal replacement but keep the general shape and size of the original trailer. I can’t scrap this now, it has some history and I will respect it.

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Axle was attacked first. Bushes were removed and it was wire wheeled back and coated in a good quality rust converter. This also acts as a metal primer as well. Bearings felt really good so they were left alone. Coupling and spring shackles were also cleaned up and treated.



Young fella decided on a silver hammer finish paint for the trailer so we tested it on the axle. Came up pretty good straight off the brush. New bushes went in as well.

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As mentioned the bottom frame was just about cactus. The angle cross members had developed a fair curve to them over the years as well, so these were binned in favour of new steel. The top frame and most of the uprights were still in great nick so they were retained along with the tail light surrounds. It was cleaned back and the holes from a couple of different styles of tail lights were welded up.







Then this happened. Fairly old elcheapo grinder gave up by snapping in half while the young bloke was using it. Good excuse to buy a new one… lol

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I had a fair bit of left-over steel from various projects so I used as much as I could to save some money. I fabbed up a new lower frame to match the size of the upper frame.





New bottom frame fully welded to the original drawbar and spring hangers.



Original upper frame and uprights welded into place.



New cross members welded in.



Torana rims cleaned back ready for paint



Conduit welded in.



Sheet metal going in.


New tailgate from scratch.

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New guards were next. Trimmed and flared to fit properly. These were quality items from Hunter Metal Market. I used the off cuts to make support backets/steps. New tyres on the original rims.





Tie rails were made up next. The original trailer didn’t have any, which makes me wonder how Sam carted so many engines around in this thing. Gravity and luck are real things I suppose…

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Some tube welded in to support the spare wheel and a large bolt to lock it down. Whole thing treated in rust converter/primer. After these shots were taken the whole trailer was seam sealed. Probably the worst job I had to do on this thing, but totally worth the effort.






Topcoat done. For some reason I didn’t take any progress shots during or just after painting which I was dirty with myself about, but not much I can do about it. I was in a rush now to get it finished for the young fella’s birthday. Also thinners can skew one’s thinking.
New bushes in trailer hangers as well.



Spare wheel mounted without a tyre. Ran out of time dammit…

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And some shots at his place once delivered. Came up pretty good if I say so myself. People who know the trailer would still recognise it. Hope I didn’t molester it too much. Thank you Sam for making this old girl available to us, she will live a while longer now.





Happy Birthday Boy…