iDRY Vacuum Kilns

Sponsors:

CraigsList find

Started by Ljohnsaw, December 30, 2015, 01:25:25 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Ljohnsaw

My daughter called me up to have me pick up some free stuff off of CraigsList.  In the mix as a garden tractor trailer that needed "some work".  She figured I could use it up on the property to haul firewood.  This poor trailer was abused for quite some time and looks to be a HF special.  The body is all small panels bolted up so it probably came in a small box.  The axles were the worst:

 

 

The one side is well worn, the other not so bad:

 

The wheels have steel bushings with a Zerk fitting to grease them up.  I think they used sand-filled grease on the one side. :D

So here is my story so no one repeats my errors:

I didn't want to put a lot into this as its not really worth it - so I figure I'd fill the worn areas with weld and lay a little hard-facing on it to help it hold up.  I filled the deeply worn areas with 7018, ground it down a little and topped it with hardface.  The plan was to clean it up on the lathe.

Problem #1 - my lathe spindle hole is just a tad bigger than the axle diameter.  I had to grind down close to the finished size to get it to fit in the spindle.  Had I planned better, I would have done one side of the axle at a time.  :-\

Problem #2 - I have HHS and Carbide bits for my lathe.  The hardface just laughed at bits. :-X  So I had to carefully grind the axle down on my bench grinder.

Problem #3 - The wheel that was on the very worn side had its hubs worn as well - slightly more than the other wheel.  I grabbed the "good" wheel to size the axle grind.  The worn wheel wobbles a little now.  :-\

Problem #4 - Not too bad but...  When hardfaceing, I got a little in the cotter pin hole - my drills can't touch it. :-\  Need to get the dremmel out with a stone to take out about 1/8".

The red bed is well faded and someone slapped on some black paint here and there.  I'll probably use my grey Rustolem and brush that on so it is all one color.  The bed steel is really thin so I might toss some plywood in the bed to help it hold up to firewood being tossed into it.  The tires leak so I'm pondering buying new rubber or just using some Green Slime to seal them up.  The slime worked real well on my ATV tires - plus it seals up leaks as you get them.
John Sawicky

Just North-East of Sacramento...

SkyTrak 9038, Ford 545D FEL, Davis Little Monster backhoe, Case 16+4 Trencher, Home Built 42" capacity/36" cut Bandmill up to 54' long - using it all to build a timber frame cabin.

Thank You Sponsors!