Dump wagon build

CDN Farm Boy · Dec 30, 2014

I have a 2 wheel cart made from the back half of an old hay wagon that I've been using to clean things up around the place. I always thought about converting it to a dump trailer. Earlier this fall I salvaged a few loads of logs out of a burn pile from some land clearing down the road and had me second guessing my plan. What a pain to unhook, load it with the tractor, then rehook to drive home while trying to maintain enough tongue weight. Then more pain to unhook and unload with the tractor. While I can't get around the hooking and unhooking since I only have one tractor, a wagon makes much more sense then I don't have to worry about balancing the load which is the biggest problem.

CDN Farm Boy · Dec 30, 2014

Picked up a used 5 ton wagon frame and ordered a few lengths of tubing

Shortened the reach as short as it would go giving me a deck area of 6' x 10'. Steering is a bit challenging with standard length tongue and such a short reach. Used 2 x 4 x .125 wall for the main rails and 2 x 2 x .125 for the cross pieces

Mounting the 4" x 30" stroke cyl. A 36" would have been nicer but I got this one at a great price.

Filled the body of the cyl with hyd fluid before attaching the hose to help with the bleeding process. Success. It goes just a hair past 45°. If I'd have had the 36" stroke cyl, I could have gotten 60° out of it but it is what it is. Also worth noting, I built my ballast barrel with this wagon in mind. I never had one before, just always had the BH on or mounted an implement for weight. Loading the logs at the neighbour's was a bit fun with no rear weight. Mount points are as low as possible on the barrel to be able to lift it high enough to still hitch the wagon to the draw bar under it. Down side is I have to set it on some 8x8 blocks to unhook it but that's a price I'm willing to pay.

CDN Farm Boy · Dec 30, 2014

2x8 spruce will be used for the floor and I've got uprights welded in place to drop in some planks to make the sides and front. No tailgate yet, I'll worry about that next summer when I tear it apart to paint. Tomorrow or New Years day I'll get it pulled back out to install the wood. Right now it's being used as a bench for building a firewood bucket and rebuilding my newly acquired wood splitter.

rswyan · Dec 30, 2014

Lookin' good :thumbsup:

Duuno what you plan on hauling/dumping with it, but you might wanna consider adding some triangular corner gussets in the four corners to reduce racking of the frame when you go to dump it ...

Rustyiron · Dec 30, 2014

That should be real handy! If it were mine, I would "tie" quite a few more X-members to that cyl. Ideally, making a triangle to the rear corners. There is a hole lot of stress (rearward) until the load is up to 25 deg.. or so, then it becomes more of a vertical lift. If I'm looking at your pic's right, you only have 3 cross members with a rather light wall thickness & dimension for the task being asked of them (while dumping) especially at 6' long. Might be fine for a few logs, but if your anything like me, eventually you'll "freight" that wagon with a huge load of dirt or gravel! Nice build!

roadhunter · Dec 30, 2014

Nice work. That will be extremely useful.

CDN Farm Boy · Dec 30, 2014

rswyan said:
Lookin' good :thumbsup:

Duuno what you plan on hauling/dumping with it, but you might wanna consider adding some triangular corner gussets in the four corners to reduce racking of the frame when you go to dump it ...

Mostly logs & brush but I'm sure it will get used for some dirt/gravel at some points too

Rustyiron said:
That should be real handy! If it were mine, I would "tie" quite a few more X-members to that cyl. Ideally, making a triangle to the rear corners. There is a hole lot of stress (rearward) until the load is up to 25 deg.. or so, then it becomes more of a vertical lift. If I'm looking at your pic's right, you only have 3 cross members with a rather light wall thickness & dimension for the task being asked of them (while dumping) especially at 6' long. Might be fine for a few logs, but if your anything like me, eventually you'll "freight" that wagon with a huge load of dirt or gravel! Nice build!

I'm hoping so! Effective length of the x-members is only 38" between the main rails but I see your point about the forces. I'm definitely more of "load it to the max" kind of guy. I'd thought about braces back to the corner as you mention but I'm trying to beat the return of snow to cut some standing dead off the neighbour's fence lines so I left them out. Probably a wise idea to take the hour or so and put them in now before I bend something.

kiotiken · Dec 31, 2014

Wow, very nice, I love it. I'm a big fan of triangles, set the saw on a 45 and start cutting! That thing is big enough to hold about 3 yards of dirt or gravel, now you just need to make sure it's strong enough. That's going to be very useful.

Thomas · Dec 31, 2014

Well done,I see lots of use ahead.

CDN Farm Boy · Dec 31, 2014

Braces added

rocketfish · Dec 31, 2014

Looks good! I think that's another project for the list!

Rustyiron · Dec 31, 2014

CDN Farm Boy said:
I'm definitely more of "load it to the max" kind of guy.

We all are brother!:thumbsup: I am so glad you did not take it as criticism. The additional bracing in your later pic's look great!

JRP · Dec 31, 2014

Iv got a similar trailer and similar need. W'd like to see some pics of it in action. Nice work, thanks for sharing.

CDN Farm Boy · Dec 31, 2014

Rustyiron said:
We all are brother!:thumbsup: I am so glad you did not take it as criticism. The additional bracing in your later pic's look great!

Pretty hard to take it as criticism when I knew they should have been there in the first place

CDN Farm Boy · Dec 31, 2014

JRP said:
Iv got a similar trailer and similar need. W'd like to see some pics of it in action. Nice work, thanks for sharing.

Hopefully tomorrow or Friday morning I'll get to load it up. Got to hook it up so I can dump it to weld up the bottom side of the new braces then install the floor. Got to also weld up the new bucket for the fel so I can go tree hunting.

CDN Farm Boy · Dec 31, 2014

Thanks everyone for the compliments. I'll definitely have some action shots soon

rswyan · Jan 1, 2015

I've got a little Country Mfg. 4' x 8' dump cart/trailer ... pretty lightly built (all angle and c channel)

It's rated at 2 ton ... but when I was hauling wet sheep manure I'll bet I had 5,000 pound in it ... adds up fast when it's wet.

I think I hauled around 120,000 lbs of manure with it one summer, not to mention all the dirt, fire wood, etc. ... very handy to have.

I think the square/rectangular tube you used should hold up pretty well.

Leylands · Jan 2, 2015

Nice job, this will come in handy. I've been considering modifying my utility trailer to a roadworthy version... Looking forward to seeing some action photos.