Roll Off Trailer Build

[f150skidoo]

So for a little back story the reason I sold my first dump trailer I built was that it wasn't big enough for bulky items. After that I built my 6x10 dump trailer which was better but I quickly discovered that it was also to small for bulk items. I use my trailer more for picking up lengths of steel, sheets of steel plate and moving larger items that I've fabricated for myself or customers. Occasionally I also move subcompact tractors or mini excavators. I was thinking of a deck over flatbed trailer would be best for me but I don't want to have to store 2 trailers or get rid of the dump trailer since they're handy to have.

I came to the conclusion that A roll off trailer would be the answer since I can store the dirt bin on top of the deck over flatbed. To save time and money I'm going to be using my 6x10 dump trailer as a donor for the roll off. The dump bed will be unchanged other then some minor cutting to it. I was going to modify the lower frame by stretching it, reinforcing it and adding a third axle but realized that I would be further ahead to rebuild the frame from new since I figured it would only cost me a few hundred dollars extra in steel compared to modifying the old one.

ON TO THE BUILD!

The new trailer will be using as many parts as I can from the old trailer as I can. It will have a third 3500 lbs axle so the new trailer will be a 5 ton. Dual 3"x30" hoist cylinder and a rear hydraulic stabilizer both ran from a 163 CC Honda motor. I'm pre-building as many parts as I can so I can assemble the trailer at once in the wood shop with out tying up dads shop for more then a few days.

The roll off frame is made of 2"x5" .188" tube, I'm using 2" DOM tubing for the greaseable rollers. The system has 4 body locks, rear two are made of 1/2 thick plate and the larger front ones are 3/8" plate. The tail/marker/backup lights will be attached to the roll off system for better visibility for other motorists. I'm using a Smittybilt 12,000lb winch for pulling the bins onto the trailer.

 

[quattro_sinko]

In for another project!

 

[f150skidoo]

Since I'm running a gas motor to run the hydraulics I needed to build a hydraulic tank. The tank holds 13 gallons and is made from 14 & 11 gauge sheet metal, I MIG welded most of the joints but I TIG welded the 14 gauge outside corner joints.

 

[f150skidoo]

Next was to fabricate the lower mounts for the hoist cylinders, They're made from 3/8" plate and are welded to 4"x4" .188" square tubing. The rod end cylinder mounts are made from 1/2" flat bar.

 

[rmack898]

I'm in for watching this build, I like the whole concept of RO/RO.

Was that a Miller can in the pic on your second post? I thought you had better choices up north.

 

[mike93lx]

Subscribing

 

[NUTTSGT]

The attention to detail with the stuff you build is truly amazing. It's always great to check out one of your builds.

 

[f150skidoo]

Some progress from today. I fabricated a A frame coupler but with a adjustable channel and built in holes for the safety chains, Its made from 1/4" plate. I started to fabricate the new trailers tongue which has the fully wrapped A frame design, the tongue uses 2"x5" .188 rectangle tube. The engine was off a old pressure washer that had the pumps case crack and leak. It took me several hours to try and remove the old pumps connector from the Honda's shaft since it was rusted on. I had to get the engine connected to the hydraulic pump so I can figure out were I want it so I can fabricate the mount.

 

[f150skidoo]

So here's a bunch of posts from working on the trailer from past few days, Been crappy weather here lately. I finished the bulk of the welding/ fabricating on the tongue (still have some odds and ends to do). I fish plated the wrapped section of the tongue when it was easy to do in the flat position. I also picked up all the hydraulic cylinders for the build, The black hoist cylinders are 3" bore x 30" stroke with a 2" rod diameter. The pair of hoist cylinders should push 42,412 lbs at 3,000 psi but you lose 75% of force in the lifting geometry. If my math is right the trailer should lift 10,600 lbs which is more then trailers GVW

 

[f150skidoo]

Next thing to fabricate was the hydraulic rear stabilizer. The stabilizer had me stumped for a while on how to design and build it, I thought i had it all figured out but I laid everything out on a piece of MDF to scale to see if everything would work. Unfortunately the 2.5"x 8" cylinder in the previous posts pic was to long, so I returned it for a 2"x 4" cylinder. The reason the first cylinder was to long to work is the rear axle is so far back that the stabilizer bar would hit the axle, and the cylinders mounts would of also interfered with the roll off systems rear cross member. To solve all the issues and still have enough swing range with a cylinder with half the stroke, I had to flip the cylinder around and have the rod push towards the hinge pin. Instead of pushing away like my grapple buckets cylinder design. To get the cylinder to have the best mechanical advantage I had to get it more vertical, to do that I had to cut a pocket into the 3"x5" .188" tube for clearance for the cylinder.

 

[Nealcrenshaw]

love it
thanks 4 sharing

 

[f150skidoo]

Some more pictures of the stabilizer and its range of motion. When the stabilizer is completed and in the fully down position it should have enough travel to lift the trailer tires 5-6" off the ground. The part of the stabilizer that's going to touch the ground is a 16" wide roller made out of 4" sch. 40 pipe and rotates around some 1.25" cold rolled round bar. I wanted the stabilizer to have a roller so I can back under a bin with stabilizer down. The whole point of stabilizer is to put a bit of down pressure to the ground so I don't lift the rear tires of my truck off the ground when winching something heavy onto the trailer.

 

[jack stand]

Didn't you say you were a bricklayer?
Just had to say something rather than "subscribed"

How did your plow work out this winter?

 

[The Cobbler]

love the detail and quality of your builds. wish you were closer to me LOL

 

[f150skidoo]

Thanks for the comments guys, Yes i am a brick layer and my plow worked flawlessly this winter. I put about 25 hours on the new blade and the only thing I had to do was snug up a few hydraulic fitting half way through the season. When ever I build anything I always strive for the finished product to look like it came out of a factory, and not like someones garage.

 

[jack stand]

When ever I build anything I always strive for the finished product to look like it came out of a factory, and not like someones garage.

Well in my opinion, you hit your mark dead center
everytime!

 

[Doms]

This is awesome. I love watching your builds. You have so much talent.

 

[f150skidoo]

Some more progress from today, I finished fabricating the stabilizer roller. I ended up cutting the arms 3"x5" tube down by 3" to keep the set up more compact. After cutting off the 3", the finished travel will still lift the tires 6" off the ground. I plan on picking up a heavy duty spring latch so their is a mechanical lock on the stabilizer. I also made up the rear pivot points out of 1.5"x 3" .188" tube and 1.5" DOM with a 1" ID, I TIG welded all the outside corner joints but I tried to TIG the fillet welds around the DOM's radius but wasn't happy with the result. So I ground out the weld that wasn't pretty enough and re-welded it with MIG.

 

[stioc]

This is awesome. I love watching your builds. You have so much talent.

Ditto!

 

[Fixed]

That looks awesome.

Where the heck did you develop these skills!?

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[NUTTSGT]

I know you answered this before probably in one of your other builds but what do you use to cut your steel ? Not the regular cuts but the intricate stuff ?

 

[f150skidoo]

I use my plasma for a lot of the cuts, but the cylinder mounts I used a thin cut off wheel on a grinder and just following the layout lines for the smaller cut and bigger cuts I use my dry cut saws.

 

[f150skidoo]

Unfortunately I've gotten very little progress on the trailer over the weekend, I had to do a paying welding job and on top of that we had a large ice storm with 5" of ice pellets/ sleet then freezing rain the straight rain on top of all that so I was very busy plowing that ****. I only got some odds and ends done like the stabilizers mechanical lock which uses a 3/4" spring latch. I also made the rear storage loop for the cable so you don't have to retract the winch line all the way in.I Finished making the parts for the rear hinge which welds to the roll off frame. I also picked up my third axle as well as the pin retainers which I had a shop CNC laser cut them out of 1/4" plate.

 

[jack stand]

Unfortunately I've gotten very little progress on the trailer over the weekend........

Yeah, I was going to complain
I'm "tuning in" nightly to keep an eye on your build.

 

[f150skidoo]

Bunch more progress on the trailer. First I made the motor mounts which is some 3/16" sheet metal that I bent into a C channel, Also fabricated a spare tire mount. I finally have access of the larger wood shop so I could start to fabricate the frame. I added some 2"x2" tube under the main 2"x5" frame to give me some extra height clearance for the tires/fenders.

 

[NJHandyGuy]

Dayum

subscribed

 

[f150skidoo]

The trailer is starting look like a roll off now. First thing I did was finish welding out everything that I could while the trailer was upside down. Next I flipped the trailer right way up and welded out all the places I couldn't weld when it was upside down. Since I have the equipment to move heavy objects I much rather flip the trailer then do overhead welds while lying on my back. I then tacked the rear hinge mounts to the main frame and then began to mount the roll off system and cylinders. I used the skid steer to check the motion of the bed & to check the dump angle. The bed angle is 36 degrees which is a lot less then I wanted (45 degrees). I would have to do a significant amount of modification to reposition the cylinders to get the extra 9 degrees,I think i'm just going to run it the way it is.

 

[Strouty]

Hurry up and finish this one, then figure out that you don't like the cable and decide to make a hooklift setup. This way I can copy your design instead of having to make my own.

Looks great!

 

[NUTTSGT]

You really ought to be ashamed of yourself. . . . you make this stuff look so easy.

 

[f150skidoo]

Keeping the original cylinder design didn't last long, I knew I would be kicking myself in the future by not modifying the trailer to dump steeper. I couldn't just switch the 2 cylinders to longer ones since the rod end mounts would interfere with the bed rollers and the longer cylinders had a 1/4" wider base pin width. So I returned the two 3"x30" cylinders for a single 4.5"x40" cylinder. Before I bought the new cylinder I spent some time laying out the all the given pivot points and angle to full scale on the shop floor and figured out the 40" cylinder would give me 45 degree dump angle. The new base end mounts are made from 1/2" plate and I made a spacer rings from 3/8" plate. The rod end mounts are also 1/2" plate and are welded to some 3"x5" 3/16" tube. I'm adding large boxed gussets to the cross tube since the new cylinder can push 48,000 lbs at 3,000 psi. the new cylinder has 5200 lbs more force then the 2 old cylinders combined

 

[f150skidoo]

Hurry up and finish this one, then figure out that you don't like the cable and decide to make a hooklift setup. This way I can copy your design instead of having to make my own.

Looks great!

I seriously thought of making a hook lift trailer but it would be significantly harder to fabricate then a cable roll off system. To build a hook lift I would probably splurge and buy a CAD system like SolidWorks that can do animation to see if everything works instead of doing it my backyard winging it style of fabricating.

 

[Strouty]

I seriously thought of making a hook lift trailer but it would be significantly harder to fabricate then a cable roll off system. To build a hook lift I would probably splurge and buy a CAD system like SolidWorks that can do animation to see if everything works instead of doing it my backyard winging it style of fabricating.

I have been watching videos on Youtube and now I really want one. I never thought about having a design that could be animated to see if it works. Someday I will have a hook lift , but not this someday.

I do think the 45 degree angle will be worth the extra work.

 

[jack stand]

Someday I will have a hook lift , but not this someday.

I do think the 45 degree angle will be worth the extra work.

There's a new unit (never been mounted) down around Well's on c/l. $16k iirc.
I had one (Stellar) for a business on a F750 with several different bodies. They are very nice but the weight eats into your available payload if you tend to run into the portable scale fellas. I'd recommend one on a tandem axle.

Looks good f150

 

[Strouty]

I tried to see if he wanted to trade something, but looks like he wants cash only.

This build thread will satisfy me for now, I always enjoy watching what the OP does.

 

[C_F]

I enjoy watching his builds too. And as always, this one doesn't disappoint!

 

[f150skidoo]

This weekend portion of the trailer build was much more time consuming then I thought. The tongue box is made of 11 ga. tread plate and is 36" wide in the back, 18" in to front and 12" tall above the tongues tubing (17" overall depth). I bent as much as I could on my press brake to save me from a lot of welding. I still have to add the flush mount latch, gas strut and a partition to separate the hydraulics from chain & binder storage

 

[jack stand]

Skidoo since you have hyd for dumping are you using an hyd winch for pulling the body on? The reason I ask is Ramsey makes a nice 8k winch with a 6" drum that's pretty compact and would make your trailer more "friendly" to any tow vehicle. (no heavy elec. lead to the vehicle battery)

edit; oops, after more thinking, with a fairly light & short winching cycle, elec with a battery in the trailer hooked to a charging circuit would do fine and cost less.

 

[f150skidoo]

Skidoo since you have hyd for dumping are you using an hyd winch for pulling the body on? The reason I ask is Ramsey makes a nice 8k winch with a 6" drum that's pretty compact and would make your trailer more "friendly" to any tow vehicle. (no heavy elec. lead to the vehicle battery)

edit; oops, after more thinking, with a fairly light & short winching cycle, elec with a battery in the trailer hooked to a charging circuit would do fine and cost less.

Yep you answered your own question, I really wanted a hydraulic winch but they're a lot more money then the electric. I would need a pump that has more GPM then my current pump which means I would need a larger motor to run the pump then my current Honda.

 

[f150skidoo]

Since I gave myself a long weekend I picked up a bunch of trailer parts like all the tires and fenders and other misc. parts. I then finished fabricating the tool box by installing the latch components and making the divider which is a mesh floor on the back for chains and a solid floor in the front for loose tools.

 

[HOTFR8]

Is the small engine a Gen Set? What will it be used for?