i picked up this 16ft tandem axle carson flatbed from sausage450r here on the board a few months back for my brother on the cheap. it had been sitting out in his backyard for years and was in need of some lovin. the deck was rotted out and falling apart (lost a good chunk of it while towing it from alpine to hemet ) the paint was thrashed, the suspension frozen solid, trailer brakes never hooked up and had no registration. otherwise, twas a great trailer.

as of today: the rotted wood deck was left at the dump as well as the tired wiring and lights. also sorted the registration and obtained new perm plates. since it had no tie down points of any sort, we welded on a bunch of old u-bolts large and small. we then scuffed all parts of the trailer that would not be covered by the deck and painted it with Rustoleum truck bed coating for hopefully a lil more durability, the textured coating really looks nices. wired it with all new wiring and LED lighting, wired the brakes with dedicated insulated 12ga wiring, and replaced the front jack with a nice beefy front crank style to clear the new heavy duty tounge box. picked up the new 2x10x16 decking yesterday and sealed everything with 3 coats of redwood tone water sealer to help the wood last a bit longer. we priced up pressure treated but that stuff is bookoo $$ so douglas fir with sealer is the route we chose. once the sealer is completely dry, we will install the deck and the only thing left will be wheels and tires. trying to figure out if painting the existing wheels gloss black with chrome beauty rings would be right or maybe going with red wheels instead of black. or just losin the wagon wheels in favor of some chrome modulars....

so far out less than a grand including purchase of the trailer

heres some pics before and current

keep in mind when yu seal that wood it is going to expand. it will later shrink back up. I made that mistake and now have a couple inches worth of space between the boards.

nice job btw...

thanks john, i think it may have been you that mentioned it before when i asked a question about decking so thats why we will wait at least a week before putting the deck on the trailer, prolly closer to 2 weeks

dang, looks good. can't wait to borrow it.

looks brand new!

When we redid one of our flatbeds, we added a bunch of clevis rings to the cross bars, then used a hole saw in the wood clear them. This way, they fall down when not in use and don't get run over, but give you amazing options for tie downs (sometimes, having all of the tie downs on the outside sucks) when you need them, and are way cheaper/easier to install than using D rings. Especially useful for quads, jacks and other random smaller stuff you end up throwing on the flatbed.

Nice thing is when installing them, you mainly have to worry about measurements in one direction only, since if it's off a little the other way, you just slide it over.

thats a good idea rockwood.

we put a total of 17 u-bolts on this thing

Word, though what I was talking about was in the middle of the deck, not on the edges. You can never have too many rings.

BTW, the U-bolts are a good idea and you could use those instead of clevis rings. Just buy a bunch of U-bolts, some angle iron, then cut and drill the angle iron so you can bolt them onto the U-bolts, weld a nut or washer onto the U-bolt so you have something to tighten against, and you have the same thing I did except even cheaper.

i hear ya rockwood, alot of different mounting solutions were discussed before any welding took place. we may put e-track on the deck down the road for tire straps too

Nice box in the front.
Don't forget about a watertite place to keep the registration

Word. Either way, should look nice, and sub $1k is good for a 2-axle with brakes.

Oh yeah, don't forget to throw a little water seal over the screws after you've put the wood on, or the water will just follow the screws into the wood.

good point, that would be a drag to go thru all the effort only to have it rot from inside out.....

btw, that box on front is from harbor freight of all places, its real beefy and sturdy

Cool. I've had my eye on that one for a while. Need to get one so I can stop storing my straps on the buggy's floorboards...

How much was the box? Did you have to order it or was it in the store?

John I know he's only got the quad...does he have plans for other stuff for a trailer of that size?

BTW, looks good!

http://www.harborfreight.com/steel-trailer...-box-65439.html

$129.99. I've seen them in the store in El Cajon before.

at some point the jimmy will end up on there im sure once he has a truck. he also wants to eventually get a baja bug or something, but for now he wanted a nice sturdy trailer and the price was right



he bought it at the hemet store and said he paid $89.99 a month or so ago....musta been on sale?

I saw it in one of the adds on sale for $100 the add had an extra 20% off anything in the store coupon. I rushed down there but they were all out. I got a rain check so the price was still the same and got it a few weeks later. I guess they dont have any say in what the truck brings them. At least that is what they told me.

In the back section of every Car and Driver magazine is a 20% off anything at HF coupon. I cut it out every time I head down, since I've got a subscription.

deck is complete and installed. instead of welding the angle iron at the front of the trailer to hold the deck down, we opted to bolt it in. if we need to pull part or all of the deck in the future for some reason, itll be alot easier. the deck was also bolted down just in front of the axles using 2 carriage bolts per plank. we loaded up the jimmy and took her for a test tow-tows real nice but the 15yr old tires didnt like it as we figured. all thats left is wheels and tires and finish the brake wiring

this project is done! for now anyway. wired up the brakes on the rear axle and since theve never been used, they work like new! ended up painting the original white wheels a graphite gray color and spiffied them up with chrome beauty rings and bulge style capped lug nuts. for now the hubs are painted gloss black, we may or may not intsall push thru center caps later on. brand new singet load range D tires are more than capable to handle the loads this trailer will see.

cant wait to get el burro on there for a run to the dez when...whenever the engine goes back in

Ubolts, Great Idea,

how much was the decking i have the same trailer that needs a new deck

damm, loooks great john! my 86 toyota would look real good on that trailer

ya right! the yota would bring down the value of the trailer!

$200 give or take, cant remember

Nice!

hooked er up to daniels new truck this weekend now that it has a brake controller installed and loaded up the jimmy to test em both out, and so daniel can get a feel of driving this combo instead of the jimmy and my flatbed with the bikes which he is used to towing. ill say that the NBS 1500 silverados sure pull nice compared to the old trucks and this flatbed really tows smooth and straight. the new signet tires dont even bulge when the jimmy is strapped down. daniel did pretty good towing around town and on the highway, pretty confident he wont have any issues bringin el burro to the dunes this season also glad we opted to do the large u-bolt setup instead of smaller hooks or rings. thanks to squatcher and scotty here on the board, we are using 4 hookless ratchet straps to secure the jimmy at the wheels, the big u-bolts work great!

U bolts for tie down points? Looks familiar.