The trailer

Since I no longer have a truck I thought I'd get a trailer. I picked this gem up for the price of the tire repair. My plan is to shorten it up and make it a utility trailer that I can suit to my needs. On the way home with it one of the fenders fell off.

Luckily, the car behind me didn't run it over. Clearly there was a design flaw as it had been repaired in the past. There was a big fat weld bead just above the crack. You are the weakest link...goodbye.

So I stopped by the hardware store and picked up some flat stock. A little triangulation

and Robert's your mother's brother. I'm a little rusty as far as welding goes, no pun intended. As we say in my family "It's not much for looks, but it's hell for strong!"

The big ugly weld bead you see is the old repair. My weld is a little ugly one under it.
The Rust-O-Leum covers it nicely.
There is another design flaw with this trailer as well. It has trailing arms and a Panhard rod which can be a nice design. The drivers side trailing arm gets in a bind, however and has broken. I can tell by the gap where the arm should meet the axle and does not and is surrounded by ugly weld gobs. I ran a couple passes across there just for the time being. A friend wanted to borrow this gem so I figured I should make it less dangerous. As it happens, he's going to pass. It's probably just as well. Like all my projects, this is probably as far as this one will get. Even though I've only got about eight bucks invested, I'll figure out a way to sell it at a loss.