Back in the 90s when I drove my 38 tonner there was this guy named Loren who had a firewood trailer that took the tonner wheels. Another guy, much older than me , Frank also had a trailer with the tonner wheels. So now there was 3 of us swapping bald tires and wheels to keep these things in rubber. Well Frank later gave me his trailer which had previously carried a large welder but I had never seen Loren's. Frank's was a back half of a '39 tonner with the narrow rear axle. The axle I used in my panel was from a '47 tonner pickup so it was wider. Well, Loren passed away a few years back and I saw his wife at the grocery store and asked if there were any 17" rims lying around...... Well to make a long story a bit shorter she asked her son and he ended up giving me the trailer. I had always assumed it was 1/2 of a ford truck, but this looks factory and VERY heavy duty. Tubular axle with srings UNDER so it sits low. I got 2 more rims out of it (one had been mine back in the day) and a cool period piece trailer that I can haul behind my panel, or my other Fords and go to the old tractor meets and thrashing bees I enjoy in the summer. This is a terribly long winded post for only half a truck, but I have a huge array of old trailers and I can't stop bringing them home. For whatever reason this has a hinged tailgate at both ends so it can carry long stuff like timbers and logs. Now I find the pics I took of it won't upload. I will get some others tomorrow. It's not half bad. Excuse the pun......

 

well well! were gona have to wait till tommorrow!

 

The fun part is I can pull a trailer with matching hubcaps and wheels. Pics tomorrow.

 

OK, so I got busy and then it rained and anyway I just took some pics with a different camera. This trailer was built with hydraulic brakes with a frame mounted bendix vacuum booster. They musta been hauling something really heavy down hill. The springs look like something from a 2 ton truck.

 

Cool trailer...tell me more about the brake setup. Surge brakes? How does the vacuum booster work?

 

Nice trailer! Waiting on a description of the brake system.

 

There is a pretty long lever, maybe 10" that has a rod to the master cylinder and is connected to the booster push rod. It is all very well fabricated. There is a piece of 1/2" copper tubing off the vacuum connection on the booster. Could it be that the 1/2" copper once had a vacuum hose on it that tied in with the tow vehicle's booster and the vacuum accuated the brakes. I will try to get a picture or two today. I doubt I would ever hook it up, but I DO have a one cylinder stationary engine that would fit in the trailer and it weighs 2125 lbs. So maybe.

 

We had an ancient travel trailer when I was a kid and I eventually built my first trailer from the running gear. It also had the vacuum brakes but I don't remember much about them.