So, since half the states between here an Washington don't allow tripling, we went ahead and sold the 5x8. I found a cheesy trailer on craigslist. One can always find a cheesy trailer on craigslist. It wasn't all cheesy, though. Apparently just the top layers were cheesy.
What I found was a 20 ft gooseneck trailer that used to be a travel trailer. It was converted to to a gooseneck from a fifth wheel and cut down in length, but not by much. The original tandem 3500# Dexter axles and equalizers are in good shape. It has working electric brakes on both axles. The frame is C5 x 9. Nothing more than surface rust. The gooseneck coupler is rated at 30K#. So, the guts of it is actually a pretty damned good trailer. It just looks like a piece of crap.
Once I pulled the treated 2x8 decking off, which is all fairly new, and in good shape with no rot, I was able to take a peek at the few problems I had. The biggest issue was that both jacks were busted. Non-working. They were, at one time, plumbed together. If you've ever seen a busted Atwood Landing gear setup, then you'll know what I'm talking about. The center bar was missing, and the gears were missing on one and completely stripped on the the other.
The challenge was how to reinvent the wheel, or at least the twin jack. I did some thinking, and some research around the net, and didn't find what I was looking for, but I found a possible solution. Sidewind square tube jacks had the right motion, and could push the GVWR of the trailer. Turns out Curt made exactly what I was looking for. The Curt HD 28575, 7k lift fit the bill. I ordered two of them from Amazon for $54 per.
$108 for 14k of lift capacity? Oh hells yeah. Still, if I didn't want to walk all the way around the trailer 10 times just to get it off the truck, I had to come up with a way to make the work as twins. I popped the top of one of them off the night they came in, and thought I had a good plan immediately.
The only thing that was keeping the jack handle on was a knurled roll pin. Once I drove that out I was able to pull the gears and bushings, and replace the stock handle with a solid steel cold rolled 1/2" rod. I could only get 3 ft sections from Lowes, so I had to splice and weld it together. A 3/16" drill bit and I could insert the stock roll pin through the gearset and was good to go.
I slid a short piece of 1/2" black iron pipe over the connecting rod and welded it to a footing to keep the rod straight under torque. Worked like a charm. And a 14k# twin lift capacity for $24 in steel, and $108 in jacks? It just can't be done cheaper.
I welded a 1/2" bolt to the end of the rod, then made a nifty little custom jack handle.
Amazingly, my build plan does not include any bailing wire, or duck tape, although the trailer did actually come with some.
I was concerned about all that weight on the pin, as I wasn't able to lift the trailer at the gooseneck coupler, The bare trailer only weighs about 1300#, axles included. At 15% pin weight I should be able to lift it with my legs.
To combat all that forward weight, I moved the axles up to the approximate center of the belly. They're actually about 8" back from the center of the belly.
It should have been much more balanced, but two of my friends and I stood on the last cross-rail (that gawd-awful 4" square steel bumper) and we couldn't get the pin to budge. There's still more than 650# on the pin, probably a lot more.
I'm afraid to move the axles up any more. I don't want to introduce an opportunity for it to want to sway at speed. I'm just going to have to be careful how I load it.
Next week, I'm working on wiring and checking the condition of my brakes. then I'll be decking and enclosing it. As a stroke of luck, I happen to have a nicely sized stack of pressure treated 2x8's just ready and waiting to be cut down.
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