Trailer Restored, Scrap Removed

I purchased my trailer in second hand in 1975 shortly after purchasing the house.  A couple had towed it across the Nullarbor Plain loaded with their belongings in their move to Perth.  That trailer did a lot of work, supporting me in all extensions on the property which included expanding the house by 50%, building the garage and car port, lots of concrete work, and innumerable trips to the tip (ie dump).  It was my 1600CC VW Beetle that did the heavy hauling in those days, and it did the job well, with the help of two engine and one transmission rebuild.

New Lights,Wiring, and Plug

Bearing Clean and Ready for Packing

Wheels Replaced

How to Jack Up a Trailer Working Solo

A welder put in a new tray bottom using a sheet of 3mm mild steel in about 1985 and I feared that I would find it rusted out on my return from the circumnavigation.  I had left the trailer under the carport, tray clean and tilted back, with the license plate locked up in the garage.  Sure enough, on my return I found the trailer on the level and loaded up with trash, which traps moisture and induces rust.  I pushed the trash off the end of the trailer, gave it a quick hosing, noting with relief that there appeared to be no serious rust on the tray, then headed off for a 3 month visit to the USA.

Two weeks ago I began the restoration of the trailer to road legality.  The trailer had a round wiring plug and my X-Trail SUV has a new fangled flat plug, which tipped my decision to completely rewire the trailer.  I gave it the works: new wiring, new LED lights and new plug.  But I still could not get the running lights to work.  I was pretty sure that my connector crimping work had been good, and with the help of the multimeter I concluded that the problem was on the X-Trail itself.  I changed the connected socket on the X-Trail which did no good.

I did not want to get into the SUV's wiring so I telephoned Trew's auto electrics just down the hill from Darlington.  A few minutes later I was on my way to Trew's, still wearing my seriously grubby work clothes because in these situations it is much better to appear like a struggling bottom feeder than a comfortable man of leisure.

I helped the auto electrician with clearing out the rear of the car to get access to the wiring harness and soon he found the problem near the tail light on the right side.

Dumping Scrap Steel

He charged me $20.  I gave him  $25 and told him to buy himself a beer.

Paul had taken much of the scrap steel on the property, including the 3 heavy sections of RSJ (Rolled Steel Joint) that took him two trips.  Then I used the trailer for the first time in probably 8 years to take the remaining scrap steel to the tip.  Fortunately scrap steel is considered recycle material by the shire and I was not forced to use any of the 4 free passes that I have for the entire year.

Then it was time to deal with the slow leak in the tire.  I jacked up the trailer, removed the wheel, then dropped it off at Ian Diffen Tyres on Monday morning.  I then repacked the wheel bearing.  I had seen Reg repack the trailer's wheel bearings about 30 years earlier and he had given me a refresher on the procedure.  I did a deluxe repacking job, removing the bearing, cleaning everything out in petrol, then repacking the the entire cavity with top quality high temperature bearing grease. The bearing and race were in pristine condition.

I decided to put the spare on the hub so that I could remove the other tire and repack that side and saw that it had lost air pressure.  I found the leak then headed back down to Ian Diffen. There I was told that the tire that I had dropped off earlier was a write-off because the leak was from corrosion on the wheel itself.  The tire that I had just brought in was repairable, but that hub would probably be corroded too, and besides, they did not stock 13" tubes.

Fortunately they pointed me to a trailer parts place on the other side of the train track and after a quick trip back to the house to see if the trailer could take a tire 30mm wider on the inside (it turned out to have 65mm to spare) I purchased two second hand Holden HR wheels, complete with tubeless tires, at $66 each.  With the one original trailer wheel that is holding its air pressure as a spare the trailer is now street legal and in pretty good shape. 

The next day I used a chain saw to cut up the scrap timber that had been next to the scrap steel for close to 30 years and soon Reg came by with "Ernie", his pickup truck, and we loaded up his next winter's supply of fire wood.

I was pleased.   Reg had fire wood for next year, Paul had a good supply of scrap steel for his welding work, that section of my property was clean for the first time in almost 30 years, and I had a working trailer.