# Scrapyard score



## chevyracer8262 (Aug 4, 2012)

I've been looking for an affordable trailer for my Yazoo 1238 jonboat for a few weeks now and just happened to find a little jewel in a local salvage yard when I was towing a suburban for a friend... Its a 95 model jet ski trailer rated to hold 1100lbs which is 12'-6" long but with a little modification and repairs and it'll work perfectly.. And i only paid $48 for it..



Trailer as I got it...



With my boat sitting on it...





Needed axle repairs....


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## azekologi (Aug 4, 2012)

$48?!?

NICE SCORE! =D> 

With just a little TLC and elbow grease, you'll have a great looking trailer well under the price of what you would have paid for a fully-functional used one.

Nice job....now, we're gonna see the before/after pics in the trailer pic thread when you're all done, right? 8)


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## chevyracer8262 (Aug 5, 2012)

Well I got a little done today and so far I'm only out the price of hardware.... Man it sure is nice to have left over materials from building race cars....lol..

Replaced the weak channel at the rear of the trailer with some heavier 2"x2"x1/4" angle iron...


Started installing first layer of boards, one more to cap them off them paint and cover with carpet....


Cut up the rotted out axle and cut new axle tube.....


I borrowed a buddies drill press to start building my spring perches, I cut the perches to fit 2"od tubing because I plan on doubling the tubing at the u-bolt area since that's normally where the erosion begin's....


Built new axle using 1.66"od x .145"wall seamless steel tubing.....


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## TNtroller (Aug 6, 2012)

nice work so far. Hope the hubs are in good shape.


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## chevyracer8262 (Aug 6, 2012)

The hubs are in surprizingly great shape just a little no bad pitting just a little surface rust which is going to get blasted when I blast the rest of the trailer for prime and paint then I'll install the new bearings seals and bearing caps..


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## chevyracer8262 (Aug 8, 2012)

I got bored today and decided to play with autocad a little bit and 3d modeled my ideas for some of the mod's for my trailer. Any one have any suggestions please feel free to comment... So far the plans are to accomplish the mods in the dwg along with move the axle back 12" so it's more under the weight rather than in the center of the trailer.. All the red is the new structural steel tubing with the lights mounted to the top of the rear guide poles with pcv pipe covering them.


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## J.P. (Aug 9, 2012)

lucky you!
congrats on the great deal! i paid about as much for the bolts and nuts on my trailer. :mrgreen: and it's not even as nice as yours....


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## fender66 (Aug 9, 2012)

That's a great find. Congrats!


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## muffin (Aug 9, 2012)

great find indeed. i know you are still in the restoring phase of it. but a question popped into my head - how do you go about getting a license plate and registering a trailer that you found in a scrap yard? was there any paperwork or anything to make it legal or can you cruise with no plates if the trailer is small enough?


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## AB14 (Aug 9, 2012)

Nice score on the $48 trailer. The scrap yard that I go to won't sell anything.

As for license plates the SOS here in Michigan will sell you a plate with a bill of sale for a trailer.


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## nlester (Aug 9, 2012)

It looks really good. I wish I had your skills, I usually wind up bolting things together. You are making something nice our of very little. The little loading ramp at the back of the trailer is a good idea.

You will need the tall guideons in your 3D rendering with the short tongue to keep track of the trailer when it is empty but with the guideons, I just center them in my back window.

I went the same route so I could park it in one side of my garage and still have storage around it. I am happy with mine except in cold weather when I have to keep a set of rubber boots in the car. If I want to power load the boat, I have to back the trailer far enough into the water that I get my feet wet getting to the car after I load it. When the weather is cold, I wish for a longer tongue.


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## muffin (Aug 9, 2012)

AB14 said:


> Nice score on the $48 trailer. The scrap yard that I go to won't sell anything.
> 
> As for license plates the SOS here in Michigan will sell you a plate with a bill of sale for a trailer.



not a bad deal at all then. all in all a great find


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## chevyracer8262 (Aug 9, 2012)

Thanks for the comments and replys, it's going to be a very nice little trailer. Here in Mississippi I don't forsee any issue getting a tag for my trailer cause I have both a bill of sale and the reciepts plus I also already have 2 custom trailers tagged here as well.. So far my entire combo hasn't costed me much cash out of pocket maybe $150 out of pocket other than a little labor, but who cares about that it'll be worth every bit when me and my boy get to take it fishing again. So far I have a yazoo 1238 flatbottom that you seen in the pic's that I've welded up everything that could/would possibly leak (got it as payment for welidng a bow seam on a buddy's 12' jon boat). My plans for it is to put foam then 3/8" plywood w/carpet on the lower deck and 3/4" ply/carpet on the seats for mounting the removable pedistals to beat the heat. I traded a buddy of mine a lowes bolt together metal workbench that I only paid $40 for both a 9.9 and 15hp 1976 model Evinrude outboards to build 1 since then I've taken both apart and built a nice 15hp outboard with new power backs, rebuilt carb, new fuel pump, new fuel lines, new tank lines, new water pump and crank rope. and now this nice little trailer on the cheap as well... The reason for using round tube for all the repairs/mods is because i've got a bunch of small pieces left over from building several different race cars so that's not costing me anything either. I tried to take the best ideas I could come up with from reading online and past experiences with loading my old Javeline bass boat I had to come up with this little design to help ease unloading and loading. and the main reason for the guide pole is my truck that I built for towing, it's a 93 GMC extcab short bed with 3" lift and 33" at's, I have to back my 16' dovetail car hauler with the mirrors because I can't see it through the back window so guide's on this small trailer is a must and it'll also keep my lights out of the water so they don't corrode and crap out on me.


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## chevyracer8262 (Aug 11, 2012)

well made a little progress today.....









Picked these up for $10 at a local flea market....


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## azekologi (Aug 11, 2012)

Lookin' hella good!


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## chevyracer8262 (Aug 12, 2012)

Well made some more progress today, picked up some pvc pipe caps and drove them on the side boards then finished bolting the board back down. Then started fabbing the rear mods then ran out of welding wire so looks like I'll be having to wait till the weekend to get another roll... I cut and bend up some boxes to mount to the top's of the guide poles.also gut some larger dia pipe to give to a buddy of mine to turn the inside diameter to slip over the guides, then I can weld them all up.


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## chevyracer8262 (Aug 19, 2012)

Well I made one step forward and 2 steps back this morning I took my rebuilt axle and pole caps to my buddies to use his tig welder to weld up my axle perches and the light caps, well welded the perches on the axle before running out of gas then used his mig welder to tack the caps together only to realize than I had welded the perches 1" too close together so now looks like I get to cut off the spindles again and reweld them all back together.... What a Day...

Progress...








Now a pic of todays screw up....


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## novaman (Aug 29, 2012)

Looking very cool =D> How did You bend the tubing for the guide ons? I ask because I saw the tree with fork in the background, and what looks like a tube in the fork. However You did it they look great. I used a fire hydrant and the receiver hitch on my truck to bend some one time, when everything was closed. Worked great even with the town marshall looking over my shoulder, ( wanted to see if I broke anything belonging to the town) [-o< 

Nice welding job on that axle tube too. That kind of ingenuity is what makes the world go 'round. Can hardly wait to see it finished.


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## nlester (Sep 2, 2012)

I've never worked with anything this big but a plumber onced showed me how to bend copper tubing by packing it with sand and heating it before I bent it, then washing the sand out.


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## cole.manns (Nov 19, 2012)

Awesome work, wish I had your skills!


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## overboard (Nov 19, 2012)

Good find:
About 2 wks. ago I stumbled across one at a local U-pull it. Probablly for about a 16-17' boat. It didn't look too bad, but I didn't inquire about it
because it was steel, and not galvanized.
Probablly could have gotten it pretty cheap.


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