Buried in my super-long car build threads, figures since there's a dedicated section for trailers might as well re-post it here...
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With some trailer-hauling trips coming up, and several nice days, and an open weekend, I decided to finally re-deck the trailer. I bought this thing a decade ago, and it was 10-15 years old then and had been used hard. I've replaced all the brakes, one of the axles, and plenty of other stuff but the deck was functionally fine (if a bit grungy looking). But in the last few years it's been cracking quite a bit and some of the board ends are pretty rotten, so it was a good time to replace. I considered getting some rough-cut oak or one of the fancy hardwoods, but way too expensive and heavier to boot, so rules that out and just went with P/T. I did go get some "better" P/T at the local lumber yard rather than the garbage at the big-boxes though, so at least they'd be straighter. So $230 later, I had 11 16-foot 2x8s.
Let the stripdown begin. Pretty sure this was the original deck , so the screws were rusted in place, but the boards were dry/rotted enough I mostly just cut halfway down and pried them out by hand, and then used my cutoff wheel to knock off all the old rusted screws. Then I painted the whole frame (admittedly a bit half-assedly, but whatever, it's a trailer).
With the deck off a few discoveries: First the crossmembers for the ramp storage were damn near paper-thin from rust and I broke one just stepping on it.
Luckily, the extra one I welded in years ago when I got longer ramps was still in good shape. This is probably my fault, as I had long ago wrapped them in old carpeting to reduce the ramps clattering around on rough roads. Lesson learned.
Also the main wiring.....was basically run over the frame and sandwiched by the wood
I've never had any issues with it, and don't want to replace it all at the moment. So for the new boards I got my router out and just cut some reliefs where the boards go over the wires, and no more problem there (sorry, no pics...)
While waiting on some materials I decided to do the undersides/sides of the boards with some old Penifil I had around from a prior attempt to save the old decking some years ago. Figure protection on all sides will be better in the long run.
With that done, I cut to length (diagonal insert method) and put a few in, and then welded in some new ramp crossmembers
then got the rest of the deck in place, bending the center one to get it in.
I had gotten some self-tapping Reamer-Tek screws last week, but it turned out the ones I got were a bit shorter than I like (only a few threads of bite in the frame crossmembers) so I had to wait a day for Amazon to deliver some new ones. After much elbow-grease (aka body weight) on my drill, I put about 50 of them in .
WIth that done, was able to coat the topsides. I was out of the Penifil, so I got some Timber Oil with stain. I know the "real GRM" would do the old motor oil + diesel thing, but I don't want to smell that or wait months for it to not be slippery. $60 is worth not doing that. So after a couple hours on my knees with a brush, it's more or less done.
Oh, I also addded these little metal half-triangles under the forward tiedown eyes, since my strap hooks had been digging into the wood because of the low mount angle. Hopefully this will fix that issues.
So, decking done
This guy came and visited me: this is an "Assassin Fly" and they're big (like 2" long) and have a moustache. They apparently eat baseically any kind of bugs (even grasshoppers, bees, praying mantis, etc) and hunt in the air, catching their prey on the fly. Pretty crazy...
I'm also doing another trailer project for the upcoming 2-night rallycross down near Ohio/W.Va.. This will involve a couple pieces of DOM, and a couple scrap pieces of the nexxt-size-up DOM.
Large ones in the stake pockets as such, welded in:
The long ones go through those to the ground, and are a bit over 6' tall.
For this project I'll also need a crossbar to connect them. I'm cheap, and don't have any angle iron long enough for the job, so I took four smaller scrap pieces from other projects and welded them together....
(hope you get the LOTR reference...)
So, more on that project when I finish it this week.