1964 Moody Trailer.

Yes, you read that right. I am currently cleaning up and modifying a small lightweight trailer that until yesterday, was sitting under my boat.

It's one of those simple boat trailers, a single tubular spine down the middle, a "box" of steel for the suspension, a couple of rollers, two bunks, and a winch. I might even say it has lights, but they don't work.

Plans are to make it look very english with lots of parts taken off of vintage english cars. The boat is from the UK and it is being towed by a Land Rover, so might as well make it look the part before I develop a need to wear tweed.

As it began.

Note, I have magnetic lights on it from HF, as the originals were nonop

And I spent the day stripping it down. Aside from an eyebolt somebody added to the fender as a tiedown, I did not break a single bolt or nut in disassembling this ancient trailer.

As I can't weld very well, I will be having a friend of mine build a 4x2 foot c channel box for the suspension area. It will need an extra support through the centre from side to side for the axleless suspension to bolt to. I will also be extending the tube two feet so I can open the rear door on my Rover. Currently the support for the winch gets in the way. On my list of "very english" parts. I have a set of 'glass Lotus Seven cycle fenders, a pair of MGA 1600 Taillights with LEDs, and a taillight set up from a Triumph Motorcycle to go on the very tail end as a "third brakelight". All of these parts will be removable when I go to dunk the trailer. In the works are a set of panasport like MG midget rims to fit the 4 on 4 hubs.

Cool. I love projects like this.

When I saw the title, I thought of the john boat trailer that I bought last fall for my canoe. I'm thinking about using it for a wheel and tool trailer with my miata on autocross days. This sounds much more interesting!

That is a cool trailer.  I am looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

We also need a picture of the boat.

I'm gonna be following this one...

stuart in mn said:

We also need a picture of the boat.

as you wish"spark" is a 1964 GP 14. An all mahogany 14 foot "general purpse " sailing dinghy that can be used for pleasure or racing. They are close to 16000 built and spark carries hull number 5942 and is not considered one if the "old ones"

Mocking up the lights. I had originally intended to use the plinths from an MGA 1600, but they are a bit too large. I will be making some smaller ones to fit these lights in a more Bugeye fashion with the turnsignals under the tails instead of ontop. The Disco has very high taillights, I would rather people see the brake lights first and foremost.

Excuse the Blue painter's tape, it worked best for this.

Bit of a gap I will have to fill in when I build my own Plinths

Now that I know where the taillights are going, it's time to make the mounts. As these are 'glass fenders, and I am 1,000% better with epoxy and glass than I am with metal it just makes sense to build them out of materials I know.

First step was to build up some rough plinths to take the flat backs of the lights and mounth them to the curved surface of the fender. Balsa works very well for this. It is cheap, it is easy to cut, easy to sand, and being a hardwood, stable enough for what I need it to do.

First one is drawn out to be slightly bigger than the rubber gasket. The next will be slightly bigger still and the next two layers will be smaller in length, but still bigger around to make a nice flared mount.

Two of the layers are only quarter size due to the curvature of the fender. no need to make myself sand more material away than I have to.

Next step was gluing them together. For this I used my favourite medium.. epoxy. I did not need to thicken it, just spread it on raw and slightly dry as all it needs to do at this point is hold everything together.

I know they look a little rough, but filling, sanding, and applications of 'glass and epoxy will take care of that.

While these are busy drying and hardening, I roughed up the turn signal mounts. As these are amber "beehive" models like the MGA and Bugeye Sprite would use, I needed round mounts. Thankfully I had a cardboard tube almost the right diameter.

A little epoxy and some balsa later, and I have them capped off.

That's probably it for a couple of days. I have 36 hours to work in next three days, so I doubt I will have much time to do much with these. Hopefully I can get back to them later in the week for some filling and sanding.

I like the All Things British theme!

Woody said:

I like the All Things British theme!

Then you will like this.

Just a reproduction Lucas Motorcycle taillight as used on Triumph, Norton, BSA, and the like. It's going to be the 3rd brake light/reflector, and license plate mount. At the moment, it is just stuck there, the trailer is now completely in pieces and waiting for me to get it to my co-worker for some welding

And just to prove I am totally nuts. My new rims and tyres came in yesterday and were installed this morning. Now I have to get my work buddy to do some welding for me.

I think there may be a slight difference in rolling diametre

Has it really been a week? Anyway, I have the square bit that holds the suspension in place being fabricated for a price that was a little hard to swallow, but as nobody else around here would even return my phone calls, I had no choice. At least they are a big professional shop and stand behind their work.

With that bit of agita being taken care of, I finally got back to working on the fenders and lights. After laying some wax paper over the fenders, I got everything taped into place and a bit of epoxy on them to anchor them together. This should give people a better idea what I am doing.

In boat building with epoxy, when they say "Filleting" they do not mean to cut open a fish. It's not even pronounced the same way. It's said as "fill-it-ing" and means exactly how it looks.. Filling in gaps and angles. To do so you need to mix the epoxy to a peanut butter like consistency with thickeners and then literally trowel it in.

Yes, the last shot looks crooked, it is the angle. I did straighten it a bit, but it was not as off as it looks. Once this mess all dries, I can do a bit of sanding, then more epoxy, then probably some 'glass to give it strength before I sand it all down and make it smooth. Then I get to do the other side.

Cool project!

It would be a cooler project if I were not so damn picky. I have already trashed the lights I worked on yesterday, I just did not care for how they looked and into the bin they went. What I replaced them with is simpler, prettier, and much more like the MGA plinths I wanted to use originally before I discovered how big they really are.

Let me give you the third iteration:

well, one almost finished Plinth to show off. Still needs some very minor filling and sanding, but I am done with the bondo. Currently coating it in a couple of layers of epoxy for strength before finishing the filling.

Then when it is done.. I get to do the other side. I actually surprised myself, considering  few days ago it was a piece of cardboard shipping tube and some Balsa

wow, it's been almost 4 months since I touched this thread. I finally (after almost 3 months) got the last of my trailer back from the welder/fabricator. More posts and pictures will be forthcoming!

I said I was going to show more.. sorry this took so long. Welder really held me up and now the weather is doing the same.

I had to get it off the grass before the guys come to mow it. I still have a lot of work to do, but at least it is mobile enough to move around by hand.

Found I had to go out and get some different lug nuts. The stock ones were for flat steel wheels. I have aluminum aftermarket panasport style rims for a spridget on it. I could barely hand tighten the nuts as they went into the recesses. Some cone 1/2"-20 long truck nuts took care of the issue and look the part.

I really need to get a tool bag just for the trailer together. Wrenches to fit every nut and bolt, a dedicated lug wrench, and spares.

Hi - any chance you have left over parts you did not use in the rehab?  I picked up one of these trailers but am missing the old fenders and the odd v piece/clamp between the long beds and the front of the trailer.  thanks.

Would be interested in some parts from the trailer if you have any left.

Disappointing to get no response.  thought the point of forums was to help each other.

In reply to alden96 :

Try messaging him. Unless you set it up, a thread author does not get update notices on their threads. Trust me, it isn't personal.

In reply to hobiercr :

appreciate the input.  i did try to message him but have no idea if it actually went through.  very limited on my use of the site.  assuming i would see something on my page if there was a response.