Just a quick update to the work on the working trailer. The M12 penny washers arrived late on Monday afternoon so I wasn’t able to get the work done then but had to wait until this afternoon instead.
The task for today was quite simple. Cut 35mm off each of the legs of the six u-bolts and use the shortened bolts to fix the cross-beams to the trailer in the place that I need them to be, which is on top of the side-beams.
This is the first of the six done and you can see the two M12 penny washers underneath the standard M12 washer upon which the bolts sits, ensuring that there is enough thread to give a strong joint.
It didn’t take long to do all six u-bolts, about an hour all told and here are the cross beams now done. I will paint the cut ends of the bolts with something to prevent them from rusting, but that will have to wait for a dry day.
The taxt task on the trailer is to fit the two new cross-beams and for this I need to drill two 13mm holes in each end of the beams and these need to be perpendicular to the beam and as a result parallel to each other. Not only that but they must straddle the side-beams exactly both ends otherwise the u-bolts will not fit.
This will be a case of measure about a dozen time to absolutely ensure that the holes will be drilled in the correct place before actually drilling the holes. This suggests a jig that slides over the end of the beam so that the holes, drilled through the holes in the jig, are in the same place from the ends of the beams which are almost exactly the same length. By almost exactly I mean less than 1mm difference, which is close enough.
More on that in a separate post.
For now, time for a cup of tea.