Adding to the fleet - utility traiiler

[Domeguy]

Several years ago while prowling through my local scrap yard, I came upon this sad little trailer setting amongst the rest of the scrap iron. On the front of the trailer was a rusted brake drum and a plastic 5 gallon bucket full of stainless steel 3/8 bolts, washers, lock washers, with a wing nut on the end of each one. While I was picking through the aluminum pile next to the iron next to the iron, I kept looking at the sad, little trailer. It's base was made from a Chevy truck, I can only assume due to the one hub cap, and made into a dump frame. It's floor was made from an old metal door, with a hole still in it where the door handle originally was. The siding is from an old erector set, and the hitch was welded on by someone who didn't know how to weld. There were no lights, no tail gate, and not much else, but it reminded me of the Christmas tree from the Charlie Brown Christmas cartoon. I saw its potential, and bought it for its scrap iron price of about $40, and got the brake drum and bucket of bolts for free. I pulled it home, and started decorating my Christmas tree. BWRR helped me out by installing a new set of lights he had for me, (he must have been thinking of the Christmas tree also by adding Christmas lights.) I reinforced the siding here and there by adding aluminum bar, ran a solid bar across the back, and added some aluminum angle over the bad world on the hitch by drilling through the frame and adding bolts. When it was ready for my test run, I backed up the pickup, and pulled out of the driveway, and she wouldn't budge. After some long thought out thoughts and a few curse words, I found they left in the drive shaft, and I had run bolts through it. After I fixed that, it was ready for its first journey, a round trip of over 1100 miles to an auction in Florida to pick up some crates. My stepdaughter and I drove down, and the next day loaded up the truck and trailer. After an hour or two, we headed out for home, loaded high, and drove about 20' when the trailer jumped of the hitch and hit the ground when I crossed over a speed bump at less than 1 mph. After tightening up the hitch, chains, and certifying it safe for the road, it immediately fell off again. I limped it next door to a hardware store (lucky for me), and to be honest, made some on the spot repairs that I don't remember what they were at this time. It was in the hardware parking lot I took these pictures. The trip home was frightful, but non eventful, until it hopped of and dug into the road again less than 1/4 mile from home. I popped it back on, and drove up the driveway and ended that adventure. I used it again a few time, with no problems at all. So, the morale of this story is, "Merry Christmas Charlie Brown", which means there isn't one...so stop reading.

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