This morning I'm scheduled to repair a dump trailer I made about five or six years ago. It started out as an all steel eight by twelve dump bed off of a one ton truck. I built the frame and used torkflex seven thousand pound axles with brakes. Sunday the owner of the trailer loaned it to a friend of a friend to remove some excess dirt from his home. It has a two and five sixteenths coupler. Evidently the borrower only had a two inch ball. The trailer came off the ball. The safety chain broke the attachment on the truck. Trailer then went across traffic and flipper over on it's top. No one was hurt. But the hydraulic power unit was thrown clear. I glanced at it yesterday. At first glance it looks like the only damage evident is the hydraulic unit is a total and the coupler plug needs to be replaced. Hopefully I'll have it on the road by noon today. There are two schools of thought on safety chains. One is they should be strong enough to fool the cops. But weak enough to allow the tow vehicle to escape a mishap. The other is the safety chains are there to keep the trailer with the tow vehicle when it happens. I'm of the second theory. I've lost trailers twice in my life. Both times I kept the trailer behind me brought it to a safe stop. (knock on wood)
	Seven or so years ago I built a dump trailer for some buds. It all started when an old boy had a seventy something chevy one ton frame drug in with an eight by twelve steel flat bed dump on it. He wanted me to put the dump bed on a truck he was yet to buy. He did construction site clean ups. The old boy learned like most of us that the last people you want to work for are homebuilders. The nature of that beast is the only way to get burnt easier is to work in a smelter in flip flops. He came in a couple of months later and gave me the bed and truck frame for a couple of hundred dollars. He'd learned his lesson and was going to find a real job. It was about a grand for two Dexter torkflex seven thousand pound axles with brakes and a set of new truck take off ten ply sixteen inch tires and wheels. It was another eight hundred for a factory rebuilt Harsh twelve volt pump and tank to match the Harsh scissor lift. One of the many considerations in building the trailer was the tailgate. On a demolition trailer it's best to have the fold back tailgates. The downside of fold backs is invariably someone will forget to secure them and they'll get destroyed when the bed is dumped. A fold down tailgate doesn't work worth a flip if the load is aggregate and it's against the tailgate. The best one for that situation is the one you see on trucks with the top pivot. Here's a shot of the tailgate latch mechanism in the closed position. Note the handle on the right and bent in holding the tailgate closed.
	The reason I was working on the trailer this week was that it was flipped last weekend. It was loaned out to a friend of a friend. They used a two inch ball with a two and five sixteenths coupler. The tow truck was a Dodge one ton with a J&I bed. Southerners will recognise the name because they're sold all over for six ninety nine or so carry out for a nine footer. My safety chain held. The J&I ring didn't. The trailer broke loose and did a complete flip. It ended up on it's wheels in the middle of a pasture. Under this pile of trash is the tailgate.
	The trailer survived it's exciting ride with just an ear broken off the tailgate, two pieces of the frame distorted, and the hydraulic pump and tank thrown clear. I fixed the tailgate. And we replaced the pump and tank.
	While I was working on it I went ahead and put on side boards. One of my cardinal rules on dump trailers is one foot sideboards. If you go above that some rocket scientist will fill it to capacity and gawd help us all. These guys use this thing mostly for remodeling. And they've both been made aware of the penalties involved when the trailer is overloaded. Here's a shot of the trailer in the dump position and tailgate open.
	Dumped view
	Bed down view
	Look close. This is my battery security system. One padlock and it's rather difficult to run off with the powerizer.