Ryans blog about the California dudes and their trailer idea reminded me of this... a bit less refined instance of a towing story. We were visiting my grandparents a couple months ago, they live south of Salina and they own my Great Grandparents old farm a few miles south of where they live. Grandpa (who saves everything) had some old lumber he wanted to give me for the chicken coupe I'm building so we load up and head to the farm. I looked the lumber over and decided it wasn't really going to work for what I had planned, but as we were talking I noticed the old trailer he had been using to move brush around had ford wide 5 wheels on it! He thought I was nuts when I started crawling under it.. he says... "See something you need there?" with a smile. I said.. did you know these old axles are Ford? He said he thought they were something odd and didn't really think much of them. He said he had other trailers and that if I wanted to take that one apart and use whatever I could have it. So we hitched it up and pulled it back to the house. Those few miles were pretty comical, I was following the old dodge in the silverado with my dad and I was having a hard time keeping up the old tires on the trailer had a nice rhythm bouncing at 65 mph or so. I just finished taking them completely apart this past weekend and I was amazed at how nice all the parts came out. the kingpins took a light tapping with my big brass drift, the spindles look great, I might even use the tie rod ends for my wishbones... I think these old axles spent more time as a trailer than they did under cars! I also love the fact that my car will have parts that have some family history, it means so much more that way.
yeah, it's the small farm way of doing things with what you've got! Grandpa is the king of putting things together and making them work without much money.
Why is it that every time I see a trailer of this sort, it always has '36-'39 Ford wheels on it. I like the trim rings on the one. Very cool Nate.
Nice! I got an uncle that retrieved a wide 5 rear from a farm trailer. The thing still had paint on it. I offered him to buy it, but he has some crazy idea about making a chariot to pull behind his restored Ford Golden Jubilee w/it.
I can sympathize with the idea of the parts having family history. Last week my 8 year old son was out with me working on my RPU and I got to thinking about how with him it makes 4 generations of my family working on this one little toy.
Last summer I found a similar looking trailer that has Packard wire wheels on it as well as both front and rear axles. I just got permission to cross some private property to retrieve it.....
That is really cool Nate. Your grandpa sounds like a great guy. It would be cool to meet him someday.
Jeffry; Your right..my neighbour gave me an old boat trailer..It has the same 38 ford front and rear axles.. I cut it up and salvaged what I could out of it..
Old cotton trailers are a source of early suspension parts and wheels here in the badlands of central California. I also see lots of old vineyard trailers sporting a variety of desirable wheels, and the back half of some old pickups serving as trailers. Our ancestors could never be accused of wasting a good chassis.
I saw several similar rigs out on the plains of Nebraska west of Lincoln. Farmers would build them to haul hay or straw out of the fields. Basically cost nothing but some time.
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