Sunday, April 14, 2013

motorcycle trailer build

Picture time
 Lots of stuff in this pic:  New Glarus beer, a Proto 5# dead blow hammer that was my reward for perfect attendance in diesel mechanic school in '87-'88, the augmented sawhorse platform, the black and red of the trailer frame, a hint of the stepladder I picked up off of the highway in the mid '90s, the tail of my RoadStar and of course, some wrenches.
 A danger/warning label in the trash, where it belongs.
 I was very happy that the tires are King brand.
 Taking apart the leaf springs, the bent steel is the bracket that I had to bend with the pliers to separate the 3 leafs.   I had to take the bolt from the center and put it back into the single leaf, the round head acts as a centering pin for the axle. 
DIY wiring harness plugs and home made tools to remover the various spade/bullet/pin connectors from the varied plug bodies.  Just take a piece of wood, hammer in a finish nail, hammer down the end about as thin as you need and then grind/sand/file it to the shape that will work.  Carve/sand the handles for comfort.  You can see that some of them are double ended.

I crimp and then solder the wires, because I occasionally like to be redundant and do the same work twice.

You can get those plugs in 2, 3, 4, 6, and 8 connector configurations, but if you only have 5 or 7 wires, you can of course, leave one empty.  I think I got them at Vintage Connections.com.  Oddly, the locking shells are less expensive than the non locking shells.  

As soon as we're strong enough, we're going out to take it off the supports, turn it over onto the wheels so we can measure for the height of the box.  You know I'll let you know how that goes....Wish us luck.


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