The Road Ranger. 1997 SEMI

[Rick W]

Around here we call that a “lawn chair”.
Wife says she doesn’t want it in the house anymore so so we take it out back and use it for sitting around the fire or whatever.

Or you save it for when someone you know moves and drop it off at their new house first day they get the keys. Say “ Figured you’d want something to sit on, you know, better then sitting on the floor.”gotten rid of a lot of old broken chairs this way.

I helped a South American company open an operation in north Atlanta a few years ago. I got those chairs and a bunch of other temporary furniture while we were building out the manufacturing like for no money at Goodwill. A couple of the desks are now work stations in my shop, and I think I started with six of these chairs. Now down to three.

 

[sgtsandman]

I found your next truck. A place in Tennessee does F250 conversions.

 

[snoranger]

I found your next truck. A place in Tennessee does F250 conversions.

View attachment 97743

I’ve been thinking about building a little big rig for years… just never had the time or enough space.

 

[RobbieD]

That red rig is being driven by a really BIG woman.

 

[Rick W]

Some work on the RR trailer today. Since the 40th I already fixed the wiring under the upper deck and improved the upper deck support, and straightened the fender I bent at the 40th. Nothing big, but I’ve been doing a lot of figuring. I scratch my head a little bit for what was I thinking” when I finished that trailer less than 24 hours from when I showed up at the Nationals and drove a couple thousand miles on the maiden voyage. It’s a miracle I only had a couple of bearings go bad.

I discovered a slow leaking tire, drivers side of the forward axle, but haven’t done anything about it yet. I think I just need to deflate it, use some steel wool to clean up where the tire sits against the rim, and re-inflate it, hopefully without having to break the bead. I might take a little paint brush and brush a little silicone seal in that spot where the bead rests.

I figured out what I want to do with the tongue/pin in the front, but I wasn’t looking forward to tearing it apart and redoing it. Today, I cut the whole assembly off the bottom of the upper deck. It was half welded and half bolted, and it actually came down much easier than I thought it would (actually falling on my knee when I got the last weld cut, ouch!). Then I cut the pieces apart since I’m going to reuse everything. I also cut a 1/2” x 6” bar/plate from the scrap pile about 35 inches long w/30° beveled ends that I’m going to weld in the middle of the old A-frame neck of the trailer to hold the rear of the pin assembly. Ran out of daylight and it was time to feed Lincoln.

Perhaps a blessing in disguise. My welding skills were very rusty, and that pin assembly was one of the first things I did when I started building the trailer. When I cut it apart today, I didn’t really see anything that would concern me from a safety standpoint, but they were crappy welds. I know that the quality of my welds when I was finishing up the trailer were light-years from the welds I did on that critical pin assembly. So in a way, I’m happy I’m redoing it, and I’ll do a much better job on the welds. That way, when my upside down and backwards, coupler fails, the whole thing will sail into the woods in one piece.

The other thing I’ve done over the last few days was just a lot of test driving of the Road Ranger, something I hadn’t done since I pulled out the coil overs and replaced them with regular shocks. I ran a few errands over the last few days, nothing heavy duty. This afternoon I went into the church parking lot across the way, and I just rode back and forth over a set of speed bumps at various speeds and various angles. I’m happy to say that the floating rear axle is actually performing exactly how I had wanted it to when I “designed“ it.

A funny side note, the pastor came out after about 45 minutes and politely asked me what I was doing. Not my church, but I know him from being the neighbor across the street for 30 years. He’s used to seeing me in the Lincolns. I offered him a ride, and he took a rain check, but seemed sincerely interested in my contraption.

The extra lift under the frame from the tag axle made the truck ride as if it was very massive, very firm stance and traction, like a suction cup. But I feared I had reduced traction on the drive axle, and I was worried what would happen if I backed up over a curb or such, if it would lift the drive axle right off the ground. It all handled like a dream when I pulled the trailer up to nationals, with the weight of that trailer being mostly on that back axle, the trip being a couple thousand miles.

Now that I removed the coil overs, it rides more like the the old Ranger pickup truck, you just know that there’s something on the tail end that bumps and rattles a little bit. When I used to go over a speed bump, there were three distinct bumps. Now, there are two bumps with a rattle finish, but a very smooth ride.

Now I’m dying to try it with the trailer to see what a difference it makes when pulling the trailer. When I did the 2,000 mile trip to nationals, the whole thing was extremely solid on the ground, but I was afraid of losing traction on the drive axle. I had no fear whatsoever up it jackknifing or anything like that. Again, I’m curious to see how the whole thing performs now, so getting the trailer back up and running is a top priority. The monthly caffeine and octane Cruzan is the first Sunday of every month (the largest cruise in in the southeast), and I’m hoping I can have it ready and take it up there.

 

[Rick W]

I spent the day redoing the pin assembly on the RR trailer. When I first did it, I half assed the engineering, but mostly I eye balled it, which is why I ended up dinging the fenders up. This time I three-quarter assed the engineering, but I made up a lot of templates and such to make sure the moving parts all stayed within certain radii.

From the center of the coupler, it’s 24 inches to the inside of the fenders on either side. I had that correct, but when I made the assembly, some of my brackets were hanging too low and violated that radius. So a primary design item was keeping everything that hangs down under the upper deck within a 22 inch circle for 2 inches clear all around

When I had it all put together the first time, and I set it on level ground, the front end of the trailer was about an inch and a half or 2 inches lower than the rear end of the trailer. It should have been the opposite, so when you load the trailer, it would sit level. Also, by raising up part of the trailer, it also improves clearance over the fenders.

The third item was simply that the transition from the upper deck to the lower deck was too far back, and the upper deck was too far back from the cab/toolbox of the truck. So in addition to keeping it all in the 22 inch radius, I also wanted to raise the upper deck about 3 inches, and move the pin back about a foot, which had the effect of moving the trailer about a foot forward over the truck. From the new pin location on the trailer to either corner of the upper deck is now 34 inches, and the distance from the coupler to the back of the toolbox is about 40 inches, which gives me 6 inches clear when turning. At least that’s the way I measured it.

The other thing I mentioned, is from being rusty (me and my scrap metal), and having not welded much in about 15 or 20 years, when I took it apart, I realized some of my welds were worse than I thought.

Soooo, yesterday I fabricated most of the pieces, and today I started putting it all together. I also added another feature. I put a receiver tube under the upper deck that extends through the step wall over the lower deck. It’s with the concept that if there was a trailer sitting on top of the trailer, I could drop it on a ball in that receiver, and only have to tie down the rear end. Don’t ask me why, it’s another vision and another project, but I added that receiver tube while I was doing all this work under the upper deck.

I did get it all together, but a lot of my welds were just to get it in place, and I have to go over all of them. I also need to add some stabilizing braces to the side, and to the rear, but my brain had shut down so that will happen when I go over the welds, to make sure they’re all in the proper radii.

it may look like this assembly is low, but remember that the fenders rise up about 8 inches above the coupler, so I’m hoping it will all look OK.

And, of course, I wouldn’t be happy if I didn’t have to do a little bit more wiring, so I yanked out a couple of wires out as I was working, so I’ll put them together when I get all the structure done.

Wait till the pastor sees me checking all this out in his parking lot in a week or so…

 

[RobbieD]

Wait till the pastor sees me checking all this out in his parking lot in a week or so…

I would definitely try to get the pastor to bless the truck. Couldn't hurt . . . may even help.

 

[Rick W]

I would definitely try to get the pastor to bless the truck. Couldn't hurt . . . may even help.

Hahaha, Lord knows I could use it on some of my hare brained schemes. Catch-22, he’d probably want me to start hauling for the mission!

 

[Rick W]

I realized one goof when I reviewed it all today when I was draining Lincoln. Originally, where the hitch slides in the receiver was directly underneath and welded to the A-frame of the trailer, taking all the weight, and the other supports just stabilized it to keep it from wiggling.

In my new rendition, the rear of the receiver mount is taking all the weight, and I don’t think I have enough vertical weight support/stabilization over the front of the receiver tube. I’ll be fixing that when I clean up the welds.

I also don’t think I ever mentioned that one thing that was intentional was to do this all with a hitch that had a 6 inch offset. That way when I get it all together, if I want to move the trailer up or down a few inches, I can simply swap out the receiver hitch to a different offset. I bet you I have a half dozen of them scattered around the garage floor….

A day of rest today after some real estate, so far…

 

[Rick W]

I was surfing the net for some ideas and parts, and I ran up on this:

Back when I was trying to explain what I was trying. to do, I was thinking it was closest to the “B train,“ but it may actually be closer to the “C train.“ Actually a hybrid, I guess.

 

[sgtsandman]

I may be misunderstanding your intent. Are you trying to do something similar to the trailer that you did with the truck as far as a floating trailing axle?

 

[Rick W]

I may be misunderstanding your intent. Are you trying to do something similar to the trailer that you did with the truck as far as a floating trailing axle?

No, but back when I was explaining what I was going to try to do I couldn’t find the picture. So when I stumbled up on this, I figured I’d post it.

My carriage assembly actually attaches to the truck in four points (but the carriage assembly does not support the truck frame). It pulls behind like a b-train, but then I’ve defeated it by using a ball socket instead of a a pin and wheel.

The B-train and C-train add tip over stability to the trailer in the sense that you would have to tip over the whole truck to tip the trailer. With the ball coupler, my trailer can tilt a while before it will actually start a torsion/twist pull on the truck.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

No, but back when I was explaining what I was going to try to do I couldn’t find the picture. So when I stumbled up on this, I figured I’d post it.

My carriage assembly actually attaches to the truck in four points (but the carriage assembly does not support the truck frame). It pulls behind like a b-train, but then I’ve defeated it by using a ball socket instead of a a pin and wheel.

The B-train and C-train add tip over stability to the trailer in the sense that you would have to tip over the whole truck to tip the trailer. With the ball coupler, my trailer can tilt a while before it will actually start a torsion/twist pull on the truck.

Thanks for the visual and explanation again, I kinda had an idea of what you were talking about and now seeing that, I think I understand it better now

 

[Rick W]

Sooooo, now let me tell you something that will really make y’all’ heads explode.

Obviously, I think The Road Ranger is a blast and that’s why I built it. But the trailer will only work with The Road Ranger. So when I have been drifting off to sleep at night or otherwise mentally out to lunch, I’ve been trying to think of what kind of contraption I could build that would hook onto the front of the trailer so I could pull it behind the F250 or something like that. So my latest harebrained scheme is to build a A-dolly like in that sketch, that I can hook under the upper deck of the trailer, and hook onto the back of the F250 with a military hitch. I’m already thinking of those oversized coil over shocks I had to replace just for the funky appearance.

It’s a pipe dream right now, I have two other significant fabrications in line before it but they have a strange way of coming true in my funny universe. It’s a pretty low priority right now, but having these visions is how I start to accumulate materials at low cost. Funny thing is I think I have 90% of what I need to build it right now.

But I am thinking of going back to the Pull a Part and grabbing those six more 14 inch bullet hole wheels…
.

 

[sgtsandman]

Is such a setup road legal without a CDL? I’m not bashing the idea, I just don’t know. I think there is a reason only semi trucks use them and “hay trailer” type setups aren’t a common thing for trailers in general.