We weld, repair, refurbish and rebuild car haulers.
01 These are the before pictures. 02, 03, and 04 are the repair pictures.
01 Before pictures of the damage. This is the page you are on now..
02 Rebuilding car hauler frame drivers side.
03 Rebuilding car hauler frame passenger side.
04 Rebuilding car hauler hydraulic stabilizer frame mount flange.
The trailer frame that connects to the fifth wheel collapsed dropping the trailer to drag on the ground while its fully loaded with cars.
Further down I have better pictures. It was raining and I used my cell phone for these pictures as I refused to pull out my $500 camera in the rain.
The owner operator unloaded the cars and called for someone else to come get them.
The driver dragged the trailer off the street into a truck stop parking lot. He was digging pavement and gravel the whole way.
Because it collapsed to the ground, he couldn't drive it to any shop, nor get it towed. It needed a temporary repair in the field just so it could drive to my shop for the permanent repairs.
Even for a temporary repair, we had to get it off the ground & elevated 7" so we could weld in some temporary supports. How do you get a jack under there?
Both driver side and passenger side connections have broken.
The metal plates had rusted till there was no strength left and the connections just ripped free.
Previously someone had welded on some Mickey Mouse connections with incompetence and they didn't hold.
Four hours later the car hauler is off the ground and now I can work on it.
Now that its off the ground, the angle is restored/correct and temporary supports can be welded on this car carrier.
Of course daylight didn't cooperate with us and abandoned us leaving us to finish in the dark. We are set up for night welding so we continued on. We don't produce excuses', we produce results.
Below you can see the temporary bracing welded to the car carrier to hold it enough to at least drive it to my shop. It was not strong enough to support a load of automobiles, but empty it was enough.
Later these temporary supports must be removed to do the real repair. They will be in the way, but for now they are necessary so the semi can tow the car hauler down the road to my shop.
So he drives all night to get to my shop. Of course he didn't break down close by. But instead of having him back down my driveway in the dark, we park him till daylight. Now its the next morning and we are getting ready to move the car hauler into my shop yard.
It was a good temporary fix. It held fine to get him to my shop.
I had to bridge across the weak spots to two different strong spots.
Now another fun part. Getting him in my long driveway. He has to back in so he can drive out as I don't quite have enough room for him to turn around in my yard. We can turn around a 38' trailer, but not a 55' footer.
Ten minutes later we have the car hauler in my yard ready for rebuilding/repairing. My driveway separates the good drivers from the bad drivers. The good can get in, the bad say it cant happen.
You know, he might not look like a hero, but boy can that man drive. And while he's talking to his Hoe on the phone. <grin> Hey, that's what he called her. That's not my language.
Now the car hauler is at my shop doors so we can refurbish his frame. Now we are loaded for bear.
Good thing we are now in a comfortable relaxing setting, because we have a week of hardcore designing & fabricating ahead of us.
What your going to see on the following pages, is 40 hours worth of the highest skilled welding, designing & repairing that can be done in this area. 7 other welding shops turned this guy down before he found me.
He's bragging to his Hoe, he just got in the impossible driveway.
Now its time to go order the special metal we will need to fix the impossible repair.
01 Before pictures of the damage. This is the end of page 01, to continue go on to page 02.
02 Rebuilding car hauler frame drivers side.
03 Rebuilding car hauler frame passenger side.
04 Rebuilding car hauler hydraulic stabilizer frame mount flange.
