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Dump Trailer


Sour Grapes

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Any chance one of you guys/gals have built your own dump trailer? Or should i just suck it up and buy one? I just want a small trailer to save time when I go to the dump when my construction business gets going. I have a 10' single axle trailer with a gate (nice for moving and loading the lawn tractors, etc), but its a pain getting debris from demolition, dirt etc out of it. I WILL be towing it with my 4.0L Ranger.

Thanks!
 


Will

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I built one out of the back half of a 7' Ranger bed. The hinge is made of pipe with tractor pins. The lift is the longest High-Lift jack. It's about one click per inch so it's 2 minutes to dump it. I used it for wet clay and it holds 6 Bobcat scoops from my 7.5 cu-ft bucket--anywhere from 3,000-5,000# depending on how wet the clay was. A Ranger bed doesn't hold much construction debris though.

I would do it out of a full-size bed.You can use the frame and build a new bed. When you use a pickup for a dump trailer you have to put a frame under the bed anyway because the bed itself isn't strong enough. Wouldn't be that much more to build a flatbed out of angle and use wood for the floor and side slats.

Any pickup would work fine for general use. You cut the frame as far forward under the cab as you can, do a little geometry to figure out the notches so you can fold the frame together into an A-frame and weld an A-frame coupler onto it. Mine doesn't have brakes, but they can be added using the existing brakes on the axle. Mine never leaves the property or I would have them. For what I used mine for, I would have gotten a full-float axle because they are much, much stronger. Also, the springs in a truck that would come with a full-floater would be much, much stouter. The Ranger springs collapse after the third Bobcat scoop and by the 6th, are bent backwards over the axle. Okay for bouncing through yard, not okay for the public road. If it's just wood from a house, it doesn't matter.

I guess I didn't pay the rent because I can't get links or inserts to work, but cut-paste this thread and you can see my trailer.


http://www.therangerstation.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20738
 

Sour Grapes

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thanks Will, very helpful info. I like the idea of using angle to create my frame, then building the floor and sides out of wood. I can use the dump trailer as a flat bed for hauling drywall etc., and i will be using it for clean fill from excavating. the removable sides is definitely a plus. basically 2 trailers in 1!
my questions i have is a) what is a full-float axle, and what/where do i look for one b) i understand how electric brakes work, but how does one set them up using existing brakes?
i think maybe targeting a 7'-8' is reasonable. assuming the dimensions are 7' long by 4' wide and 3' deep, thats 84 level cubic feet. that is my goal! this could turn into a pretty cool build thread!
 

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A floating axle is commonly found in the back of a 3/4 or 1 ton truck. The axleshaft "floats" it just turns the hub, the wheels bearing holds the wheel on the truck. The front axle on a 4wd Ranger is the same principle.

To use hydraulic brakes the most common method is to use surge brakes, U-Hual uses them. They use pressure on the hitch to run a closed system to actuate the brakes. I am not that well versed in them but on the surface I would think there would be a way to make it electic over hydraulic using the regular brake controller typse setup.

Depending on what you are doing it might be better to just get a regular trailer axle with electric brakes. Fewer things to go wrong.

I rented a tilting flatbed once, using the hydraulic jack that was made into it wasn't too bad to operate (I absolutly hated driving my tractor up on it though) Typical dump trailers use a battery with a electric motor running a hydraulic pump to dump it, it works really nice.

Personally I want to find an old PTO manure spreader, rip the beaters out of the back and maybe rig up a motor of some sort. Then I just load it up, haul it wherever I want it, back in and use the conveyor in the bottom to unload. If I leave the PTO and use my tractor I wouldn't even have to dismount to unload.
 

Will

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thanks Will, very helpful info. I like the idea of using angle to create my frame, then building the floor and sides out of wood. I can use the dump trailer as a flat bed for hauling drywall etc., and i will be using it for clean fill from excavating. the removable sides is definitely a plus. basically 2 trailers in 1!
my questions i have is a) what is a full-float axle, and what/where do i look for one b) i understand how electric brakes work, but how does one set them up using existing brakes?
i think maybe targeting a 7'-8' is reasonable. assuming the dimensions are 7' long by 4' wide and 3' deep, thats 84 level cubic feet. that is my goal! this could turn into a pretty cool build thread!
BrakeRite is the electric over hydraulic setup. It takes your electric controller and has a motor that activates the hydraulic brakes. It's expensive.

A surge brake actuator is cheaper, but you'll have to have the tongue end in a 3" square tube. I like surge brakes and that's probably a better choice--no wiring in the truck.

Using a trailer axle might be okay, but it's also an expensive proposition if you want a 6,000# + axle and brakes. One of the benefits of using a pickup is that you have an axle and frame.

A full-size pickup bed is larger than your assumed dimensions. It's 80" wide to the outside of the box so you have about 6.5' inside and 50" between the wheel wells. The stake pockets will let you make the height whatever you want.

It's typical for a 2 axle trailer to have a pair of 3,500# axles. Depending on what you carry, you will want a 250/2500HD and above. A 14-bolt full-floater is a 7,500# axle, for instance. You aren't going to hurt it. With a full-float you can pull the axle shafts and pack the bearings with grease. You need to make caps to seal the ends, but anything would work for that.

A 1/2-ton axle is generally 4,000# max capacity. A load of oak stacked as high as the cab can reach 5,000#-- + the weight of the trailer. I have a video of an F150 with a broken axle being helped home by a loader. A semi-float axle has one little bearing directly under the wheel and a full-float has 2 large ones. A trailer axle has 2 bearings instead of one little bearing so even a 3,500# trailer axle stacks up well against a 1/2 truck axle, though each of the trailer bearings is smaller. A 6,000# trailer axle has decent bearings in it, but it's going to be expensive and not worth putting one in a pickup-bed trailer. Also, that size of axle is going to be much wider than a truck bed if you get one off the shelf.

Cheapest way to get a dump trailer is to cut a suitable 3/4-1-ton pickup frame, make the hinge like I did, use a High-Lift and make the tongue end in the 3" rectangle so you can use an 8,000" surge coupler.
 

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