Build a DIY Utility Trailer for $300 - Part 1

hi today we're going to show you how to make this 4 by 8 trailer it fits a 4 by 8 piece of plywood or whatever you need to haul and it was made using a minivan axle and Springs and that makes it pretty cheap because you don't have to buy an axle or anything and we were able to get it done for less than 300 bucks alright my wife thinks this is the ultimate in redneck yard art but this is actually off of a 2000 and something Dodge Caravan and it is going to become my new trailer so what we've got here is a real nice rubberized isolator on that spring it looks like a real good one got our spring plates then on the other end we've got a shackle and spring plate already off for them so everything there is ready to go all we got to do is make the trailer part unfortunately the emergency brake cables are just cut on this would be nice to have some ebrake s-- I'll have to get those set up after I get the trailer built this light kit and tongue cost about 30 bucks at Harbor Freight you can see the two and a half inch tongue piece slides right over the two and a half inch square steel I bought three different types of metal for this project this right here is a two inch by three inch by 0.078 and I bought two twenty four sticks of 24 foot sticks of that these round ones are one and a quarter inch by 0.072 rounds and I'm about to 24 foot sticks of that and then for the tongue I got this here which is a little thicker it's two and a half by two and a half by 0.12 and I got one 12-foot stick of that even though I'm probably only used six or eight feet of it so all together that's what we've got for the steel now some of that steel I've already used I started putting together the trailer over here basically what we've got is I cut a 45-degree angle on this end brought it over here I've got a little 45 degree angle here and I tack that together and then over to the other side same thing 45 degree angle and tack together and then bringing it over to here with another 45 degree angle so basically that's the beginnings of the of the trailer and the part that's open right now is the part that I'm going to use as the front of the trailer all right so I've mounted that piece that we just cut and I measured it both from that side to that side and I measured from there to here to make sure that we hadn't spread the the bars out by putting it in there so it fits just right and you can see it's fairly close there so it should be an easy weld on both sides I've got it held here by these little cheapo magnets to just kind of keep it in place and I will just throw some tacks some tack welds on there and that'll make a nice strong rear end to the trailer I'm using a Miller 175 welder here and it's a 220 volt welder and it does a pretty good job with this thin metal that we're using the tack welds just hold the metal in place while we line everything up once we're confident it's all straight we'll do the final welds okay so I've got those pieces tacked in for the back of the trailer and now I've laid this piece of tongue the piece of the two-and-a-half inch square the thicker piece that I'm going to use as the tongue I've laid it in in approximately where it's going to be I marked it off right here which is level with the ends of the trailer here and that's the so that's the length of the tongue that will be sticking out in front of the trailer now I measured that out so that basically I'd be able to turn my Jeep without having the trailer hit it when it was at 90 degrees from the Jeep at an angle so what I'm going to do is I'm going to end up cutting it right there I'll cut it off and I'll weld it on right there and then I'll make another cross piece that goes from here to there and then from here to there and then I'll make another cross piece that goes from there to there and from there to there it's going to be really important to get this thing straight and level with the rest of the trailer so that it rides right I've set buckets on the four corners of the frame so that it doesn't warp as I'm welding it and peel up or anything like that the concrete is kind of straight mostly straight straight enough for what I'm trying to do here so I'm just using it as the template and I'm holding down the metal just to make sure that it doesn't pop up or anything like that while I'm welding okay have taken the tongue piece and I've welded it just with a little tack weld right there to hold it in the center I measured out the distance there I got exactly the center and now I'm taking that tape measure I'm going from that corner to the front of the tongue and taking that measurement and then I'm going from the other corner to the front of the tongue and making sure that those two measurements are exactly equal that's the way that I'll be able to make sure that I'm exact I've got this tongue exactly in the center and pointed directly forward from the trailer I can also take some measurements from this to this to make sure that it's the same as from there to there and that should also help to get it centered out so I'm just going to be real careful as I make these first couple welds at the front to put the front of the trailer together to make sure that I get it exactly in the center so that this thing will ride straight I've got this piece cut for the the front bar I've got my 45s cut on both ends but as you can see because that two and a half inch square is there I can't just set it on there also as you can see here there's a distance that's the difference between the three-inch piece and the two and a half inch piece so there's that little piece there so what I'm going to do here I'm actually going to make it a cut out so that this whole piece will slide down over that and that way there won't be any corners or hole where water can get up inside the frame all of this is going to be welded straight so that there's no penetrations and no way for water to get up inside the frame and there is the knotch complete so that that piece with its mitered edges can kind of go all together in one piece goes all the way across from that corner to that corner as a single solid piece I've got a little bit of play here so I can fine-tune the the tongue and get it in the exact right place after I get that all tacked in at the two corners so there's where she's at right now I might put some more cross pieces in up here going across that way if I have some smaller metal I'm nervous that if I put in a full two by three right there it's going to make this thing a little bit heavier than then what I want it to be I think it's strong enough right now and the only thing that would do would be add a little bit of support for the mesh the expanded mesh flooring that I'm going to put in so that is it I'm going to start burning it in alright I got this whole thing welded up here and I just wanted to show you this is a little bit better angle here of what we did where we made that cut but this is one solid piece of steel running from end to end it just has that one cut out in it and it's flush from the other side so don't mind the awesomeness of that welding if you guys have any tips just let me know also I just wanted to show you that I capped off this end piece well bit a piece on the end there and grab it down smooth so that we won't get any water going in through that piece of tubing into the rest the frame you

Channel: FogoFox

Views: 963,980

Keywords: Trailer, Utility trailer, how to, tutorial, 4'x8', minivan axle, homemade, diy, Miller welder, weld, Do It Yourself (Website Category), fabrication, cheap, repurpose, home built, truck axle, low-cost, build, fabricate

Id: 9oNaoI5MuhU

Length: 9min 6sec (546 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 13 2013