Oct 23 2023

Yes the work continues on the top side !

First I need to finish the rail in the front.

Done !  And it turned out very nice.

Got to love it when a plan works out.  I now have 13 ft- 4″ of deck space.   Also the box sits there nicely and the lid has room to open.

Now to figure out the tail lights…  I made the decision to go simple.  No fancy angles, just a good size square with room for the lights.

The two lights are designed to flush mount so I’m using a piece of 1/8 ” aluminum sheet.  Seen on top of the fender.  It’s now time to clean up the top side of rust and loose stuff before I flip the trailer.

OK The whole gantry thing was a bust.. Therefore the part of this post that deals with that I edited out. However the axles are a go..

Removing the Axles :

Compare old and new !  Ya ! not much left of the old bushing..  And the bolt has seen better times too.   It gets worse..  New bushings won’t help.

All that play just hammered the eye of the spring.  Going to get interesting ! I’ll have to get some brass shim material to fix this.  I’ve ordered a new bolts, bushings, shackles and two equalizers because everything is toast .

I discovered that years ago I bought an air hammer !  And never used it …till now.  Made short work out of the frozen bolts.  So now the axles are free and I have set them aside for cleaning and painting.  Just don’t know where to start?  The frame needs cleaning and the brake parts too.  I’ll do the brakes next.  So many little rusty parts !

One thing for sure ..these brakes were not in working order.  It looks like they had the left and right front brakes reversed.  And not only were they backed off , but the adjusters were also rusted stuck.  In this photo you can see two clean ones and a rusty one. Got the brake parts cleaned up .  Made a new update video…

Rather than leave my axle and brake parts all over.. I decided to complete the cleaning.  Gather all the parts in a box and clean and paint the drums.

Here’s a clean drum next to a not cleaned one.  It’s important to polish the inner surfaces of these drums. Both the surface for the magnet and the brake shoes.

And this is the finished drums.  Painted with Por15  rust paint.  I’ve used this product many times and it’s tough.  These will not rust again !  Same goes for the axles.  They get a good cleaning and a Por15 paint job too.

This paint may be tough but it does not like the sun.. Which makes it perfect for axles and springs.. you know stuff that hides underneath the trailer.  It takes a good 24 hrs to cure, and I don’t want to make dust.  So one at a time… When the axles are done then I can put them aside and concentrate on the frame.  Let’s start a new page…

12 ft trailer page 6: