Stuart Ablett
Member
- Messages
- 15,917
- Location
- Tokyo Japan
I knew that the trailer I'm using had some cracks in it, yesterday I did a delivery I do every six to eight weeks, a bunch of sake over to Gokokuji and back. Not that far, but with a combined weight of about 80Kg between the sake and the trailer it's a bit of a hike. On the return leg, with much less weight in the trailer I notices some tell tale squeaking, this for sure means the cracks have gotten worse.
You can see the areas that the trailer cracked, I knew it would crack here eventually, this area is kind of a weak link uch:
This is the crack in the left side, it is not all the way through the square tubing, close but not quite all the way.
This is the right side, yep, that is busted!
What I'll do for now is clean the paint off and then weld it some, adding even more metal to this already heavy trailer, its about 34Kg now.
You can see the extra metal on the right, the Blue "A" point, that is from where I hacked the trailer into three parts to make it wider to fit more stuff that I have to take on deliveries. I'll add another piece of flat steel between the Blue points "A" and "B" where the yellow arrow is on both sides, that should be good to go for another six months. In the mean time, I'm going to start getting things together to build a whole new trailer.
This time I'm going to build it out of round Chromoly 4130 tubing. I'll buy one of these hydraulic tube benders, so I can eliminate as many corner joints as possible. I'll have to get a hole saw sized to the tubing as well, to be able to fish mouth the joints.
I'll get Tim to build me some bullet proof 26" wheels, with disc brakes so I have my parking brake, can't be without that, and the whole deal should be a LOT lighter than the 34Kg I have now, and with some thoughtful engineering, I hope it hangs together longer too!
You can see the areas that the trailer cracked, I knew it would crack here eventually, this area is kind of a weak link uch:
This is the crack in the left side, it is not all the way through the square tubing, close but not quite all the way.
This is the right side, yep, that is busted!
What I'll do for now is clean the paint off and then weld it some, adding even more metal to this already heavy trailer, its about 34Kg now.
You can see the extra metal on the right, the Blue "A" point, that is from where I hacked the trailer into three parts to make it wider to fit more stuff that I have to take on deliveries. I'll add another piece of flat steel between the Blue points "A" and "B" where the yellow arrow is on both sides, that should be good to go for another six months. In the mean time, I'm going to start getting things together to build a whole new trailer.
This time I'm going to build it out of round Chromoly 4130 tubing. I'll buy one of these hydraulic tube benders, so I can eliminate as many corner joints as possible. I'll have to get a hole saw sized to the tubing as well, to be able to fish mouth the joints.
I'll get Tim to build me some bullet proof 26" wheels, with disc brakes so I have my parking brake, can't be without that, and the whole deal should be a LOT lighter than the 34Kg I have now, and with some thoughtful engineering, I hope it hangs together longer too!