Homemade trailer gate assist

all right we're gonna try a new project today we're going to install a trailer gate assist on this trailer which is this is not a kit there's some kits out there you can buy with the pretty expenses so I'm trying to save some money do it myself I picked up these garage door springs came with these cables probably about six eight foot of cable more than I need and they were only 8.99 each at Menards and 90 pounds each so 180 pounds of lifting ability I got uh some scrap bolts and stuff that I had laying around this is actually go on the gate for the cable to hook to and these will hold the spring down through there and this will actually be us the Cable Guy which I'll I'll tackle that on there so this this cable will go through that Center hole this is also scrap stuff I had laying around so what we're going to do is going to put about three welds on each side down on this just to hold this down and all this does is this is a protection in case the spring explodes it keeps it contained instead of flying out like shrapnel and possibly damaging somebody or somebody's property and I got two of these they're the same length probably five foot long and these Springs are I don't know two foot long 18 inch or something another 26 inches maybe two foot 26 inches somewhere in that range and uh 190 pound 180 pounds of of lift capability for assisting this gate so I don't know how much gateways but it's heavy so hopefully it will uh save my back a little bit so we got the Old Chicago welder there a little this is a little flux core welder I really like it got it at the Harbor Freight I wasn't sure if I like it but I kind of do so it's better than the old stick welder I had but uh one of these days I'll upgrade to a MIG maybe we'll see until then all right I'll check I'm gonna get this stuff started here so I'm gonna attack weld a little bit and then I'll uh I'll come back perfect all right so we've got the cable guide welded on there it's not the greatest wheel jump and I'm not a great one now we got all this I only says cable so I decided to go ahead and double Loop it I'll probably wrap it with tape or something in this outside and then got it ran in here to the spring and then with this spring we'll uh we'll bolt down probably on the last one here hopefully we can get well actually no that's not gonna work that way we'll have to figure out okay where to put it should go into the finger yeah you'll have to sorry about the finger we'll have to go into the fender here probably with the bolt s stack another couple washers on there I don't think it'll hit the tire but I really don't want to hit the tire I think all right well yeah all right so I'm gonna go ahead and get the other one set up and then we'll uh check our progress in a minute some weld down again there anyway and we've got our cable in and our spring in we'll put a bolt through the end over there I thought it was going to go up and down to him hold the spring on this end but we're not going to have to do that we'll have to go through sideways because the way the Spring end is which would be better because I don't want the bolt I don't want to drill through the fender and tire anyway so all right maintenance progress Okay so we got our spring secured there it's all contained in here with the cables double cable looping around the loop here and we just let it down and there's not a whole lot of tension taken off of it yet I'm hoping it's better whenever we get the second one in here we'll be able to crack some of this weld Down clean it up and then uh give us some paint and then probably wrap those cables up so they're not poking in the hand and stuff so all right all right so we got both sides on now um let me see the cables put some tension down that Springs stretched out almost to the end good thing I went with the five foot long tubing because I wouldn't had enough got both sides bolted in and I'm gonna probably hit a couple of these wheels again just to clean them up a little bit but other than that they're pretty good it's all in good shape so got these ends welded down and I don't know if I'm gonna paint it red I don't want to paint it yellow because that's a popular brand of this kind of a thing that I see a lot on people's trailers if you see the yellow ones you probably know what I'm referring to I made payment I made this paint black honestly just to keep it clean looking I don't know this trailer isn't real clean looking but the trailer gate assist will look the cleanest maybe I don't know but quite a bit of uh tension relief off of it I can do it with one hand or not strain too bad I kind of wish the Springs were a little stronger but I think the 90 pound Springs were the only ones that would fit in my tubing that I have so that's what I went with and they were cheap so I can't really complain about that I gotta tighten these bolts up here I don't know I might grind that off I hate to catch a tire on that with the one grind that down or something there I don't know but yeah here it is uh it's supposed to rain tonight and then tomorrow so I don't know if I'll get to painting it for a little bit but there it is turned out pretty good so I don't know if I'll do a follow-up video on the paint or not you guys know what paint looks like so not a big deal but yeah look at this one-handed I might tighten the cables up a tad bit because that one's a little loose but uh yeah that was a little loose too but we'll see all right thank you all for tuning in

Channel: mikesquest

Views: 5,224

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Id: lHg5TuFnMRE

Length: 8min 8sec (488 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 27 2023