I'm heading to the firewood processing place tomorrow morning to pick up the first of two trailer loads of wood. The place sells wood by weight so you drive on a scale, then get under the conveyor, get back on the scale and pay based on how much wood was loaded. There's a choice between hard and soft wood, and it's cut to length and split (mostly) and I typically get 7,500 lb to 8,000 lb in a load. I usually end up splitting a bunch of it into smaller sections. In preparation for picking up the wood I needed to do some maintenance on the 16 ft dump trailer yesterday.
Yesterday afternoon I replaced one wheel/tire with the spare since one of the tires was severely damaged. I think it happened when I was pulling the trailer with a tractor and rotated the trailer about the axles without moving forward so the shearing force on the tread was excessive.
I also greased all four bearings (wheels off the ground and spinning the wheel while pumping grease in with the DeWalt), replaced the torn and tatty rubber end cap plugs, topped off the hydraulic tank and finally hosed the trailer clean, inside and out. When I bought the trailer new in August of 2019 I ordered the 2ft extensions which were well worth the $1k or so. The front extension is a single piece and it's bolted to the side extensions, but the rear of the side extensions and the rear extensions aren't connected so that the gates can swing open. I was thinking of doing something more elaborate to prevent the wood from pushing the rear extensions outward which is what typically happens, but figured I'd try a strap first. If that works well enough I might look at welding on some hooks or similar and using a chain or something.
The empty trailer weighs around 5,000 lb and fully loaded with wood it's up around 13,000 lb. The '02 F-250 pulls it well enough but does struggle on hills, but the F-450 is going to be so much better.
Yesterday afternoon I replaced one wheel/tire with the spare since one of the tires was severely damaged. I think it happened when I was pulling the trailer with a tractor and rotated the trailer about the axles without moving forward so the shearing force on the tread was excessive.
I also greased all four bearings (wheels off the ground and spinning the wheel while pumping grease in with the DeWalt), replaced the torn and tatty rubber end cap plugs, topped off the hydraulic tank and finally hosed the trailer clean, inside and out. When I bought the trailer new in August of 2019 I ordered the 2ft extensions which were well worth the $1k or so. The front extension is a single piece and it's bolted to the side extensions, but the rear of the side extensions and the rear extensions aren't connected so that the gates can swing open. I was thinking of doing something more elaborate to prevent the wood from pushing the rear extensions outward which is what typically happens, but figured I'd try a strap first. If that works well enough I might look at welding on some hooks or similar and using a chain or something.
The empty trailer weighs around 5,000 lb and fully loaded with wood it's up around 13,000 lb. The '02 F-250 pulls it well enough but does struggle on hills, but the F-450 is going to be so much better.