Building a trailer from a pickup

Hey guys...

So, I got this old truck last fall for next to nothing. Its an s10, with 324,000 miles. Its pretty much done for. I made a few videos with it, before one of my friends destroyed the clutch in it.

The body is really beat up, the inside is a wreck, and its not drivable. I don't think its worth fixing up. If i did, i highly doubt I could get my $500 out of it.



Anyway, instead of spending my (or his, rather) clutch money on a clutch, I'd rather keep it, sell some parts, and scrap the rest, excluding the back half, and the frame. Its a Florida truck, and the frame is solid. As is the bed, its rusted through along the wheel well on one side, but is otherwise good as new. Beat and dented to hell, yes, having a questionable integrity, no.

I could really use a good trailer, and this is cheaper than building one from scratch, or buying one. I need some way to move scrap without feeling guilty about using my beautiful good truck.

But, I've never built a trailer before.

I trust my welds, I can pass a bend test on an open root weld in or out of position, and I'd feel completely safe following this thing down the highway. I feel most confident in my smaw welds, so I'd defiantly "stick" with that.

I've never designed something like this, so I thought I'd share my plans. About a foot in front of the bed (I might want to add a toolbox), I'd bolt a crossmember (see picture), and directly in front of that, and then notch the top and bottom of the "C" frame. I'd then heat it up and bend it inwards, and then tack everything into position, and start welding.

For the added support piece, I'd weld the big "T" joint, and where the ends meet the pates at the ends, with a 1/8" 6010 root pass, and then do two weave beads over it with 1/8" 7018. For the top, I'd run the same root pass, and cover it in a weave, and on the bottom, same root, but with stringers. Crossmember would be made out of rectangular tubing, 3/16" thick.

Or, I guess I could leave a gap and do it all open root. I think thats the way to go here.

And for the frame; thats not very thick, so I'd probably leave a tiny opening (<1/16), and run stringers over it with 3/32 7018, on both the top, and the bottom.





I just want to know what yall think of this. I know I can do the welds, its mostly the design and the choice of what welds to do that I'm not sure about. And any feedback would be great. Its supposedly not very hard to register a trailer here in ohio (especially one under 2,000 lbs), but I'll defiantly look into that more before I start ordering steel, and sawing my truck in half. And yes, I do have a title for this truck, if that makes a difference.

Not saying don't do it. But one thing to consider, while we were in Florida there were ads claiming to pay $200 for junk cars.

Dusty

Your plans will work just fine. I turned two s10's into trailers and the only difference between your plan and mine is that you are going to bolt your crossmember in and I just welded mine in place. Only thing that I have add is make sure you cut the pickup frame to the same length and angle on both side so that it tracks well.

Looks like a good plan although I would probably make the crossmember out of 1/4" x 3" tube. I would echo others and make sure you check your axle for square with the tounge before final welding.
It will track much better when square, especially when loaded (or a bit overloaded). Looks like a cool project!

Brad

cut the frame rails up by the ft.cab mounts notch them 6 or 8 " in ft. of the bed pull frame rails in to center I used all thread to pull them in, measure from rear wheels to ball hitch, when measurements are the same that is the center. will post pics tue night of the one I built. they are not legal for on the road in Pa.

Alright, thanks!!

Also, whats not legal about it in PA?? I researched it online earlier, and they claim to want a title for the truck (or whats left of it), and receipts for the parts used in the build, to make sure you paid tax on them. They're a little harder to deal with, with a trailer over 2,000 lbs...

Yeah, I considered that... Cars go for a lot here in Ohio right now, and so if i were going the "just get
rid of it" route, i'd part it out, sell a lot of
things on ebay and craigslist, and scrap the rest, probably for more than $200.

Lanse...You've received some good comments here. I might add that you take your excellent plans...and they look absolutely great...to school and see what your welding/shop instructor might have to say. Any possibility you could get a school grade on this??

You are showing great talent...keep it up!!

RICK

My trailer is made from an S-10.
For what it's worth, I did mine differently.
I cut off the frame a few inches ahead of the bed. In front of the cab mount bracket. The whole front assembly was built, slid back into the frame rails, and bolted in. That way the whole assembly could be rolled and turned in any position for welding. I wanted one narrow tounge, without diagonals, to allow a tighter "jack-knife", as in backing the trailer to a front porch, with the pickup being sort -of parallel parked along the street, not sticking out into the roadway.
I used a heavy, thick-wall square tubing, with the outside dimension, the same as the hitch assembly, just slip the hitch over the tube, drill and bolt it fast. For the length, measure from the outside of your truck bumper, to the hitch ball, add about 2 feet to that.
I made two crossmembers of channel iron, 1/4 inch thick, Measure between the frame rails, then add about 8-10 inches, for starting length of each channel iron. I think I used 2 inch by 4 or 5 inch channel,( what will fit inside the height of the frame rails)
Mark the center of each channel iron, from that mark, measure out 1/2 of the inside dimension of the frame rails, each direction, mark there, cut a vee on top and bottom and heat and bend the end, closing the vee, these parts should fit snugly inside the frame rails. Then weld the vee closed.
Cut a hole in the middle of one of the channel iron at the top or bottom of the channel, shape it for a snug fit with the square tubing.
Next block the trailer level. Have your truck nearby. Slide the crossmember back into the frame about 2 ft. (at your choice wether ends face front or back) Slip the square tubing into the crossmember hole, slip the hitch over the ball.
Now you need to decide the best tounge angle/height.
Square tubing thru both channels at the top?
Square tubing thru both channels at the bottom?
One on top, one on bottom? I hope you get the idea.
Front crossmember slides in with the ends pointing back. I used 4 bolts at each end of the crossmembers, 3/8 in bolts with flats, locks and nuts.
Remember measure twice, cut once. measure often, keep it square.
What I tried to describe is similar to your drawings red parts, with the second crossmember.
I'm not savvy enough to post a drawing or pix.

Thanks man!!

Idk... My teacher is actually having to come up with things for me to do right now... I finished an ArcAir gouging assignment, which was the last part of our stick welding ciriculam (I'm assuming because we run the arcair off a stick machine and/or because he just had to fit it in with one of the processes). The last part of the year is spent on mig and tig, for the students who won't be back next year for whatever reason, those who flunked out, are moving, switching to another program, or graduating (switch into welding for their last year), and right now the rest of the class (save for two other students) are way behind, and he doesn't want to start us on mig/tig, because then the other kids will want to do that, instead of finishing their stick work.

If I took it into school, I'd have to use the school's welders and consumables (I want expierence with my stickmate), and i'd have the "help" of other people.

There are two kinds of kids in my class, those of us who do what we're supposed to, learn everything we can, do our assignments and don't have time for other projects, and the rest who mainly work on things that people bring in when they're available, waste a ton of time when they're not, just don't care, are pretty lousy welders, etc.

And besides, if i took it to school, I couldn't take pictures or video of the process

But thanks for the idea... It only took me about an hour to draw up, on the free version of google sketchup (Money's hard to come by for me right now)... I'm sure that I could have done it in less time, but I'm newer to sketchup than I am to welding, haha...

It means a lot, thanks

You're right about trailer licensing being easy in Ohio, or it was about 5 years ago. My son turned a tent camper into a utility trailer. He had no title or other paperwork for the camper. As I recall I went to the BMV & picked up a form which then gave me permission to tow the finished trailer to the local feed store to get it weighed. Then I took the same form back to the BMV & paid the money & got the plate. On the registration it says home-made trailer. I think now they want to know the color of the trailer because I know some guys who use the same plate on multiple trailers as long as they are in the same weight range.

thats totally what I wanted to hear, thanks!! haha...

Idk what this will weigh, the front half of the truck is heavy half, and the back half is pretty much just a tin can with tires on each side. I guess i'll be making some phone calls in the next few days...

Lanse, The only change I'd make is I'd extend support #1 out the front of the V 18-24". This will make tight turns a lot easier.

I did the same with a Toyota a long time back, and about to do the same with Ford F150.

I don't realy know all the bs. do know you have to get the forms, takes a long time cause they give you the wrong ones 2 or 3 times, then get it weighted, then off to a inspection station to have it check out, then send all the forms back in and wait and wait and wait. if your lucky you get a title, if not then start over this was 5- 10 years ago, don't think you can even do it now days. Spose to be legal for Me to run Special,Mobile Equipment plates on my 1 ton service tr. PA. law says its leagal if I drill water wells, which I do, When I went to see bout getting them was told that the last guy tryed for a year before he gave up

Scrap it out & come & buy the trailer I have for sale for 250.00 . If you're in Ohio , you are only a couple hours away . Its titled with lights & good 6 ply tires - road ready . I'm now disabled & have too many trailers sitting here not being used so this one goes first . I built it back in the late 60s & its hauled a lot of everything with no problems . It has 3'side boards & 3' hinged tailgate .Its even hauled a heavy load of tools , equipment & materials to Kentucky for a Church work camp . Tows straight as an arrow .If interested you can email me . God bless

When you do a 6010 root pass, it's generally a very narrow weld just to get full penetration. Then you clean it up with a grinder before putting the fill and/or cap pass on(on pipe). You don't need to weave the 7018. Same goes for a fillet weld. It will have a wider bead anyway. If it's a V groove weld on thicker plate or pipe and the V gets wider as you fill it up, you generally run 2 or more beads side by side. Thick vessels can have 4 or more passes on the cap. I've done pipe spooling in the past on 4" heavy wall pipe. The pipe was rolled in a positioner with a MIG root pass and 7018 fill and cap. Hot pass was usually 5/32" 7018 and the fill and cap done with 3/16" 7018. Most of the other welders did it the same as I did with 2 3/16" passes side by side for the cap. Some guys did the cap with one pass of 1/4" 7018! It takes some real skill to do that on a 4" pipe. It is faster but the finished weld doesn't look nearly as nice as the 2 pass 3/16" cap. I've seen trailers made out of truck beds where the frame was left long and just bent in a V to form the hitch with some added bracing and gussets. Check with motor vehicles for any rules regarding home built trailers. If I remember right 1/8" is the thickest you can weld from both sides before you have to bevel the edge. Instead of leaving a 1/16" gap, I'd fit it tight and just run a very light pass with a grinder on the seam. I don't think I'd bother with bolted on cross members and 1/8" wall tubing should be plenty for a light trailer.

Lanse, how did you like gouging with the Arcair torch? You can do really nice work with a gouger once you get used to it. (I've seen several machines burned out from gouging, LoL)Don't try it with your Stickmate though and never use a gouger on a TIG machine. It might be a blessing in disguise that you're being held back from going to MIG/TIG.

See if your teacher can order some 5/32" 6010, 7018 and maybe 7024. Also see if he can get some 3/16" 7018 and 7024. While everybody else is catching up, you can get some real good experience burning larger electrodes. Also a good time to practice your cutting skills. Practice cutting freehand bolt holes and holes for pipe to fit through and bevelling edges with the torch. Why can't you take pictures at school? The nice thing about building at the school is your teacher will be able to help you as well as check things over. You make me wish I was back in school. Had an awesome welding teacher. I always had my own projects but one of the projects they built was a tandem axle horse trailer.

Lanse, your design looks pretty good. Just a couple of things I might suggest. Your support #1 make it out of a 2 1/2" tube and extend it out farther to the front for a longer tongue. That way your coupler will bolt right to it. This pickup looks to be a short box? I made one out of a Datsun pickup that when done there was as much bed behind the centerline of the axle as there was in front of it. It didn't have enough tongue weight to pull as nice as it could have. That is where the toolbox would come in handy on the tongue. Just a thought. Have fun and be safe!!


Steven

Lance, I'd only suggest welding a couple thick pieces of angle iron on a vertical axis at the front. Then space a series of 3/4" holes up and down so you can change the height of your coupler for various vehicles that don't have the right size drop hitch. Build your coupler so it sticks out far enough to jackknife the trailer without bending a bumper.

Ok,

I had a "truck bed" trailer built out of the rear half of a 76 1 ton (srw) chevy pickup. I did not build it myself, but it was given to me to scrap, and I used it to haul scrap for 5-6 years.

They cut the frame rails long, left the "rear cab mounts" and bent the frame rails to just the front of that mount. Welded/bolted a ball coupling on the frame rail out front.

It weighed in at 1600 pounds.. and I had hauled a couple loads that exceeded legal.. I remember hauling over 4000 pounds of big truck brake drums in on it once.

I looked for a picture that shows how it was constructed, but I'll be danged if I can find one.. It's been gone a few years now.

Brad

Lots of tips, I"ll note my practices. Use a long tongue for good tracking on highways, short tongue for low speed getting into corners with tractor. I tend to use as much frame as possible for tongue/sides. Cutting C frame rails- line up cuts and torch or saw with cutting wheel, heat cut and use a tire iron to lift one edge/lower other edge of cuts, then heat side section and shove from front to make a V- the cut sections that got the tire iron treatment then form a good lap weld instead of butt weld and you have your reinforcing gusset half done- no need to make up patch like some people do that make a triangle cut on frame and expect it to match when bent. I did a S10 frame into flatbed for hay and equipment hauler for farm use- the frame was sort of bowed out around cab before cutting, this was part of side impact crash protection at the time of manufacture. A long tongue and the V of frame rails becomes space for spare tire and/or toolbox. Carefull check of wire loom and cut long means possible to have your taillights useable for trailer relatively easy. If using the pickup rear axle as no brakes- pull drums and remove all shoes and hardware to prevent a lockup at inconvenient time. If you want to have brakes? A boat trailer inertia master cylinder and slde assembly new list $129.95 couple years back Northern Hydraulics- or check boat yards for possible salvage for $20.00 or tongue section with brake for $50.00. Locally in Wisconsin I don"t need brakes up to 3000 pounds so almost all the trailers don"t have brakes- Check your laws. Rear end drag will reduce mileage but not much compared to differential less trailer axle. RN

Lanse, the only other thing I might add is that when you do any measuring for cutting and notching the frame and for centering up your hitch, do it from a same spot around the end of each axle (not from the tire either). Assuming you want it to track straight. Sometimes beds can be bolted on a little crooked to match the gaps with the cab so a measurement from the bed may not be square. Or the frame can be knocked a hair out of kilter in a fender bender.

For layout, I think I'd use a two foot level or plumb bob from each side of the axle down to the shop floor. Make a mark, and chalk a line over the two marks, (base line # 1) on the shop floor. Do a 6', 8', 10' to get two square lines off base line # 1 towards the front. Measure two equal distances from base line # 1, chalk another line from each line, (base line # 2). Now you should have a rectangle. Do a diagonal measurement both ways to make sure the rectangle is square, correct if necessary. Find center of base line # 1 and base line # 2. Chalk another line over these two marks, now you have a center line to work off of. Then build the hitch to match the center of trailer. :wink:

Puddles!! I was waiting for you to chime in here...

That made sense after reading over it a couple of
times, and I think its what I'll do... I just need a
redneck plumb bob now, maybe a fishing weight or a
washer or something... Thanks for the help!!

Well you could get lucky like Rusted and the frame mounts square up with the axle so you could use them to measure from. I've got a trailer I made from an old 56 IH pickup bed. It has them old 16" wheels with split rims. Kinda hate to pull them old tires and wheels so it just stores junk. I know I just hate it when I pull some other trailer and look in the side mirrors and the trailer looks like it trying to pull out and pass me.

Brings back some memories.
Back in the 80s I spent 2 1/2 years up in Anchorage working as a welder with my own portable rig. When work was slow or in my spare time I'd build trailers out of pickup boxes. Had a couple of guys who followed the auto auctions and would buy all the junk pickups. They would keep the engines etc and I would buy the frame and box from them and turn them in to trailers. I must have done 50 of them. Always made good pin money at it.
I did all the brands - Toyota, Datsun, Ford, Dodge, Cnevy. Got to be pretty good at it. My favorite was the Datsuns. I could take a complete Datsun PU, (sans engine/tranny) turn it into a trailer, load the cab, etc into the box and haul it away to the scrap man in about 5 hours.
Once I had a few of them built and no one was buying. I had to move across town so I hooked 3 of them up and pulled them all at once like a wagon train.

Lanse, I wouldn't measure off the axle. Axles can be off a little bit since they're bolted on. Here's another way to find or check for center. I'd go off the frame near the back as far as possible. Measure from common points that are the same on both frame rails(like bolts holes or measuring from bends). You could clamp or tack a straight edge across the frame extending out each side 18" to 24". It's not a critical measurement, you do that after. Then measure the same distance out from the frame on each side and make a mark on the straight edge. What you need to do is triangulate from the frame to find the center for the hitch. Then take 2 identical long tape measures and clamp them on the marks you made. Make sure they are both clamped exactly the same on each side. Once you know where you want your coupler to be, you bring your 2 tape measures together and where the same measurement from both tapes meet is your center line. The actual measurement doesn't matter. It just has to be the same. The same idea as when you corner square something like a skid or box but you form a big triangle instead.

(It was better than sending a new apprentice to get a sky hook or a spark bucket the first time you got them to corner square a skid. 99% of the time, they'd ask what the measurement should be. Just to mess with them, you'd give some imaginary measurement like 19 ft. 7 9/16 inches. They yell back it's not even close. If you wanted to mess with them even more, you'd tell they don't know how to read their tape measure or they cut the beams wrong. Some guys got really upset because they thought they messed up. Even worse, some guys forgot and asked again what the measurement should be when corner squaring).

Triangulation will work whether you want the hitch closer or further out or change your mind. I was shown how to do this when welding flare stacks on some tanks. There was about a 16 ft. 8" pipe sticking out the end of a 6 ft. diameter tank. A horizontal line was drawn across the opposite end of the tank and then a straight edge was extended out past the tank to hook the 2 tape measures to. After the extension pipe was tacked, the tank was turned 90 deg. and triangulated that way. On your trailer, the secong triangulation won't be required. Hope I made sense.

A couple typo's in my post above. In the middle paragraph about messing with new apprentices, another thing that really messed with them was when they asked what the measurement should be and you said it doesn't matter! When they kept asking was when you gave some imaginary measurement. Thanks Lanse!!! Just thinking about some of the things we used to do to the newbies brings back some good memories and pretty funny ones too.

Lanse a redneck plumb bob won't work in this case. You need a sharp point to be able to transfer the line to the shop floor. Now you don't need mercury filled plumb bobs, or even a nice brass plumb bob, any good hardware store should have a cheap 4 or 6-oz plumb bob. A 2 foot carpenter's level will work here also. I personally don't like the twisted string, I like the small braided string, the twisted string takes 400 forevers to stop spinning!

Triangulation measuring is a very good method also! Problem with dealing with this old stuff, nobody knows, if or how much it's been racked over the years. You need to take a lot measurements, and stand back and look at it from different angles. Rebuilding something like this, can be more nerve racking than building new. At least from new you control every aspect.

Dave gives good advice as usual and is right that the axles can be mounted/slipped/knocked off a little off just like the box can be. However the goal is to get the trailer to track straight behind you when pulling it so it doesn't look like it is trying to pull out an pass you as I previously mentioned. That also affects tire wear when they don't track right because you want the tires to run straight and not at an angle. So it is still best to triangulate off of the axle to figure out where the hitch goes.

And an afterthought on factory body mounts as a reference point, I would not guarantee that they are necessarily square to the world when put on at the factory.

I thought the idea was to get the tongue in the center. Once you do that you can use the center point to triangulate the axle to check if it's square(lines up in the center) with the trailer. If not you need to do an alignment on the axle. To exaggerate, imagine if the axle was 6" forward on one side. That would put it 6" back on the other side for a total of 12" out of whack. If you measured off the axle, the tongue wouldn't be anywhere remotely close to center. The axle could also stick out one side just a tad more that would also throw everything off. Trailers and vehicle frames are built square and the axles are put on afterwards and aligned to the frame. When building a new trailer it's always good to triangulate the axle mountings before welding just to check they are the same on both sides. Kind of like a math equation where you can do it backwards to check if it's correct. The further back you measure off the frame, the more accurate, especially for a short box like Lanse has. Axles are usually a couple feet forward from the back of the trailer. It's not uncommon to have a trailer aligned. In Lanse's case I doubt he's going to pulling this trailer across the USA on a daily basis.

Puddles, I'm glad Lanse is asking questions on how to do things. It makes me look into the memory banks and I'm learning new stuff as well. When he goes for his apprenticeship schooling, the instructors will be asking him how he's cheating! I bet they'll laugh when he tells them some crabby old welders on a tractor forum helped him. LoL It took me years to learn all the stuff Lanse has and he's only 17!

Well, the first thing no one mentioned was to take off the gas tank...so, I guess this was assumed. The last one I did was a Ranger truck and I cut the frame off in front of the front doors, notched them and bent them in to a piece of 1/4"X 2" square tubing and bolted and welded a 2" coupling to the tubing. And I was done except maybe for plating the notched bends in the frame. As far as I know,it's still running around town with those pretty Ford Aluminum wheels on it. ohfred

He's got over a 3 hour ride just to get to Pennsylvania. My aunt teaches at the high school where he lives.

Oh I see. I just thought maybe it could help him out & save him a lot of time & trouble . Now days to get a title & plate for a newly constructed trailer , a guy has a lot of red tape to go thru . Wasn't like that when I built my trailers years ago . God bless

Looks like a good plan, just make sure you wire wheel all of the heavy rust off before you weld.

Scott
http://www.welders360.com/

It's part of the laws the smoggies convinced them to pass. If you don't have the original motor in your muscle car you need receipts for the motor you put in it. No hood scoops that block the view of the driver. Well, if someone a foot shorter than you inspects the car, they might not be able to see over it, even though you can. They really put some stupid crap through with the emissions stuff.

Warren county needs to have their cars smog-tested every year because of the air quality. Never mind the number of gas wells, or that the largest city, Warren, also has a large refinery.

They can also ticket you for having an insert in your reese hitch, if they feel like being a Richard Cranium (think about that one a minute). Some lawmaker's wife banged her knee on someone's hitch in a parking lot. My question is, why was she that close to someone else's truck?

They were also talking about requiring full DOT inspections, log books, and a bunch of other stuff on farm vehicles. A minimum age for pulling a trailer over X pounds (covers most stock trailers). CDL for driving a tractor and implement that weight over 30,000 pounds gross, with a logbook.

Basically, they want to put the farms out of business, so that we can save the environment by buying all our food from someone else, too.