Service trailer came early boys

[red]

These deals popping up lately have been too tempting haha.

After realizing that the 9ft service bed on my truck was too small for all my tools, and was killing my fuel economy, decided that moving the tools to a trailer would be the best option. Lucked out and found this 11ft Reading bed for $250 that was a few miles down the road and in much better shape. The planned trailer to pick it up was occupied so used this small but stout trailer to recover it.





Trailer wasn't a high priority since my truck currently can't pull a gooseneck until the bed gets swapped and for some reason people here think that a used gooseneck is worth about as much as new. Well a buddy mentioned today that one of his neighbors is selling a little lightweight gooseneck flatbed for cheaper than I could turn a truck chassis into a trailer. After a little bit of negotiating I now have a 20ft gooseneck trailer. Needs a hub rebuilt/replaced and tires.




Little bit of heavy lifting with the forklift





And voila, now have the main parts assembled for the service trailer.







The trailer deck is 8ft wide while the service bed is 7ft 7in wide so with the bed centered there are 2 1/2in of extra trailer width. I kind of like that because if I happen to be towing it somewhere and end up scraping the trailer edges, it doesn't shred the box.

 

[MrMarty51]

I know them wheel wells on that service bed will be used for some kind of storage. LOL
Nice find, again.

 

[red]

There's been a few ideas so far on what to put in the wheel well openings hahaha.

There's not much of a set design layout yet for the trailer but I do want it to look nice, not thrown together. #1 requirement is easy access from the ground so no top boxes. The wooden deck on the outside edges sits higher than the rest of the bed so going to pull those boards which lowers the box 2". Gets everything as low as it can be with easy access. The ladder/pipe rack is coming off.

#2 requirement is that all my tools/equipment/supplies will be on it.

I'd like to have everything covered. That includes any fluid and air tanks. The fewer things for DOT to potentially complain about the better.

Work bench/cargo area of a good size. I'm thinking the last 3ft of the trailer deck would work well for that. For cargo I'm talking about if I need to carry an engine.

Won't be a large crane on the engine since the truck gets the wrecker bed, but might put a little 1 ton crane on it to make working on the heavy stuff easier.



The 9ft service bed on the pickup isn't going to sell for much, so might end up using it as well on the trailer (or parts of it) if more storage is needed. Trailer is long enough that both beds would fit haha.

 

[MrMarty51]

Incorporate wheel wells from the other bed into the one on the trailer, making room for the dual axles/tires of the trailer then drop the bed down to make a nice fit. LOL

 

[red]

Incorporate wheel wells from the other bed into the one on the trailer, making room for the dual axles/tires of the trailer then drop the bed down to make a nice fit. LOL

Trailer frame is too wide for that sadly haha.

If I need that much extra room the easiest way would be to just set the 2 complete boxes end to end. Imagine the first picture but with both boxes on the trailer. Welder mounted with it's face accessible from behind the gooseneck. Don't think I'll have a need for THAT much room though hahaha.

 

[MrMarty51]

With a little sawing, cutting, welding, the boxes could be made wide enough, You've more than enough material with the box that's not being used, then, the fender wells could be mounted end to end to cover the tires/wheels. Just think, You would have the largest service bed trailer in America. LOLOLOL

 

[red]

Along these lines?





Or bigger, like these? haha







Building off of your idea Marty:
Use the front 3 sets of boxes from the 11ft Reading bed (including wheel well boxes), then the rear 2 boxes from the Knapheid bed (wheel well and rear boxes). Followed by the rear boxes from the Reading bed. Or maybe just the wheel well boxes from the Knapheid bed.

 

[MrMarty51]

Now Your getting the idea. LOLOLOLOL

 

[red]

That is alot more work than just throwing the bed onto the deck hahaha. Does look much better though

 

[MrMarty51]

I`m afraid I would have to go through the labor and pain to make it look like it belongs. LOLOLOL

 

[Will L.]

It would not be hard to spend a LOT of time and money on making it look like it belongs there. You need to first consider it’s function.

If you are showing up to customers jobsites where that is representative of you, your work, and the type of work your customers should expect- then make it look as good as it can.

If not and it is just for your personal use, then simply secure it and make it safe. Work off it for a little while and you might decide a tow behind service ody is a horrible idea. Or could be the best thing you have ever done, and you dont even want a service bed on the truck because the trailer is the answer.

One of the best service trailers we ever built at the truck equipment shop was from a take off from a penske box truck. All storage was inside and he had a small work area outside of the wind, rain, and sun. It looked very nice and was very secure. Later he decided he needed some outside door access for the most common tools, so a simple door was cut into it and both outside and inside access was available. We talked about doing 6 doors on each side when we first started. He put it to use a couple months at my suggestion first, and it saved him a chunk of cash not doing it and proved to himself it wasn’t warranted for his use. His assembly was simlilar to yours. He had an older trailer that was ok, but too large. at first it was just secured to the trailer, we modified the trailer and permanently mounted the box to the trailer frame.

 

[red]

Use is for a mix of personal and business so it does need to look professional. When it comes to design it will end up similar to that gooseneck service trailer I posted up a pic of, minus all the stuff on top of the boxes that they have.

Most of the stuff I work on is too big to bring inside a box trailer. Large trucks, yellow iron, etc. I am however going to put an awning off of the trailer to serve as shade and protection from the rain since I am a natural redhead and get crispy from the sun.

Realistically the bed needs to be lowered down to where it's sitting on the trailer chassis. I might be able to get everything into just that 11ft bed since the lifting/tie down equipment will be on the truck, which would really simplify any mods. Would require going to a single trailer axle.

What I don't want to do is start down the rabbit hole of mods on this. Keep it simple and as cheap as possible.

 

[red]

Did some measuring today. Dropping the bed down to the chassis is a no go since the trailer frame is wide and the boxes are 20" deep, it would put the trailer width at 9ft 8in. But, that does save me alot of potential labor. So the main plan is:

Remove the wooden deck on the over wheel sections (to make the deck flat).
Move the bed all the way up behind the welder.
Move the axles forward.
Chop off the rear 5ft ish of the trailer frame/deck.
Have a few boxes under the sides of the trailer (outside the chassis).
Make use of the wheel well area of the bed.

That would provide enough storage, more professional looking, functional, and decent sized service trailer.

 

[red]

Bit of work today on the trailer. Pulled the service bed off and removed those outer boards from the deck which lowered the bed about 2".





Needs a new hub assembly on that side just not bothering with it yet.

Moved the welder back enough to make room for the spare tire. It'l get secured properly just wanted to get everything into it's location for now.





Lastly set the bed in it's planned location and ran a few bolts through the bottom of the front boxes. The rear of the bed needs to come down which will happen when the rear bumper gets cut off. Then to decide if the last few feet of deck will get cut off the trailer, or if that will become the work bench. The deck is too low currently for a comfortable work height unless there was something tall sitting there (larger engine for example).

Area between the bed and the welder is going to be for the waste oil/other fluids and a press.

 

[red]

Now that the holidays are over and it got above freezing today figured I'd do some project work. For those that might remember from the crew cab build it took some cutting/welding to get the tool box into the old service bed. No surprise, same thing to get it out of there haha.




New bed has the same problem. Trimmed the sealing edge on the top/bottom, and trimmed the excess material off of the top of the box as well which gave just enough room to squeeze it into the new service bed.







Leaves some room alongside the box for other stuff, about 9" wide spot. Undecided what will go there. But there's a problem, not enough space between the door latches and the tool box. The shorter door is an easier fix that just needs some flat strap added to it, making the latch easier to reach. The main door however has no room for it's lower mechanism. The upper clears the box, but I'll need to either cut into the bottom of the box, or remove the lower mechanism from the door.

 

[Will L.]

Hmm, tough problem. I always come up with harder solutions first, then later the easier one hits me, sometimes. If that happens I’ll speak up. But...

What if you remove handle and rods, cut a hole and mount it into the right side of the right door where the open space is. Cut the hinge pins on the right door. Weld the right door to the left door so now it is one big door that hinges on the left (which is what you want-always hings doors so if left open and drive away wind closes not opens them). When you cut the handle opening in the right door, do so cleanly to reuse the piece to fill in hole where the handle came out of.

Otherwise, can you show how much of the latch system is in the way? Is it just the door to door latch or do the rods attachment hit also?

 

[red]

Couple pics of the door latch issues. The doors don't latch to each other, they each secure to the box.

Short door with only a upper latch (this one should be an easy fix by just extending the tab closer to the door opening)





Then the larger left door, pics of upper/lower latches. The upper is workable as is, the lower is not.








A mod that a friend mentioned would be to make the left door latch pins completely straight and just drill new holes for them to secure into the service bed body.

Used the trailer today for working on the replacement springs for the crew cab (new urethane bushings). The deck of the rear work bench is too low by about a foot which was already known. An idea for a new addition though came up today. Needed the mag drill to sit higher so I clamped a piece of angle iron to the rail and raised it up a few inches off the deck. Thinking of making some kind of adjustable height platform that the mag drill or anything else could use.

 

[Will L.]

Haha, yeah straightening pins and drill holes sounds way easier.

 

[red]

it happens haha. When I put the box in there yesterday it was the last thing I had planned and it wasn't being cooperative (trim here, trim there, now here, ........ little bastard). So once it was finally in and I realized that the door latches were now a problem, well I just didn't want to think about it at that time hahahaha.

 

[Husker6.5]

Better than Plan B, an external hasp and padlock!