"Big Foot 46"

 

or

 

The trailer ...

 

 

From Big Foot’s paint job I still had some paint left which I didn’t wanted just to throw away. The single-axle trailer, formerly from the German army and then from THW badly painted blue, really looked miserable compared to Big Foot. So Orest and I decided to use the remaining colour for the trailer.

 

First everything had to be dismantled,

 

But there more you took apart the more edges I found which required treatment with steel brush, grinding-papers and all these tools to get rid of the rust.

 

This work was extremely dirty. Robin, who assisted me a lot and myself looked more than once like this.

 

Again I took a lot of photos from details to make the reassembly after the painting as easy as possible.

 

The edges of the platform were sealed with a special glue from Würth.

 

The drum-brakes were taken off for checking, the bearings were cleaned and inspected and once decided to be still OK re-assembled with some cartridges of grease.

 

The rims were sprayed silver – same as with Big Foot. The two tires from the axle had suffered from being exposed to the sun, the spare one from underneath the trailer was perfect.

 

Alongside Big Foot’s design the bottom was black,

 

And the upper parts sand-yellow RAL 1002.

 

And here after the platform had been put onto the chassis.

 

For the height-adjustable NATO-style draw-bar I built a retainer. (Of course this fits as for the normal, civilian draw bar with 40 mm stud.

 

This retainer fits into the right storage box. Within the next weeks I will srew boxlocks onto the claps so that I can built in key cylinders to use here as well my normal keys, pls. refer as well to here.

 

Although I only bought in addition these two side marker lights,

 

I have increased the value from EURO 240,- four times! Lots of consumables for grinding, getting rust off, additional paint, undercoating, etc. summed up bit by bit and not predictable. Here some impressions.

 

 

Broken hooks from the cover plus other minor things were repaired from the  saddlery Meininger in Weinsheim. I didn’t invest into a new cover and stayed with the dark-blue one although it does not fit to the look any longer but she was still OK and I refused additional costs.

 

To be able to use the same key as for Big Foot or e. g. our house I have added boxlocks to the storage boxes.  The locking cylinders are part of a locking system, which means I have built in the "garage keys". So I can loan the trailer to somebody and give him the appropriate key, because he can open only the storage boxes but not living cabin of Big Foot and of course not our house.

 

 

Once again I have to thank very much Orest and my son Robin!