Trailer ID and decking advice

[ChemicalChaos]

HI all,

I've recently bought this monster of a trailer. Its a 7m tilting jobbie with a flatbed deck, I gather it started out in life transporting small cars 2 at a time!
I know it's a commercially made trailer not a homebuild, but so far I have been unable to identify who made it or when. The green paint is not original, and has covered whatever makers marks that hadn't already been removed. The only data plate is the MAM figure on the Bradley hitch.
It doesnt appear to be any of the usual 3 suspects (Ifor, Brian James or Bateson), as it eschews modern lightweight construction techniques of pressed/punched and folded sheet for good old fashioned angle iron and box section. (The aforementioned hitch plate gives a MAM of 3500kg but a capacity of only 2000kg, so it must be 1.5 tons all by itself )




Anyway, shortly before I bought it, it had all-new wood decking which was covered by glued and siliconed lino for weatherproofing. This looks a great idea, but experience has proven that whatever load you put on the trailer will vibrate and rub through the soft lino, compromising the waterproofing and allowing damp into the wood. As far as I know, the wood is chipboard or ply or similar - certainly not marine ply or anything that in itself would be weatherproof.
I plan to strip the lino off, but what would the PH missive suggest as a suitable replacement? The best idea i can think of so far, is to screw sheets of chequerplate down onto the wood, then have the whole deck sprayed in Line-X/Raptor/some other form of textured "bed liner" product - both sealing it, and adding grip to the surface. Does anyone please have any better ideas?

Thanks!

[normalbloke]

Never mind that, tell us about the bit of Seaking that’s on it?

[normalbloke]

Oh, and phenolic resin plywood is the answer to your question.

[ChemicalChaos]

Thanks for the suggestion... just looked it up, as I suspected it's not cheap..... to do the whole 2.2x7m deck would be about £450

It would cost me about £250 to plate the deck in chequerplate..... though I have no idea how much a coating of bedliner would then cost on top.....

The trailer itself was only £1200 so I'm reluctant to splash out a huge amount on it! (especially as it was bought on the promise of man-maths, whereby the purchase paid for itself after 5 years of not having to rent a trailer 5 times a year....)



As for the Sea King.... there is a thread on it somewhere, that hasn't been updated in about 3 years.... I must do so at some point!

[wack]

Blue line trailers have made their own for decades

Many years ago I bought one from PRG that was built out of bits of ship , they specialise in car transporters so it could be one of theirs

http://www.prgtrailers.co.uk

[wack]

Blue line trailers have made their own for decades

Many years ago I bought one from PRG that was built out of bits of ship , they specialise in car transporters so it could be one of theirs

http://www.prgtrailers.co.uk

[shovelheadrob]

Phenolic ply as mentioned is the proper solution, anything you put over the existing floor will just trap water & accelerate any degradation. If the existing floor is clean & dry you could remove it & have it coated with bed liner before refitting, but that's not cheap either.

[Leptons]

Having just been through the whole second hand trailer buy experience it doesn’t look like any of the usual suspects. I would go with, very well made homebuilt. If it isn’t home built I’d be more worried about it having no plates on because the only reason I could come up with for the hundreds I saw on eBay missing their plates was that they were nicked!

As above, Phenolic ply is what you need.

[ChemicalChaos]

Thanks for the replies chaps,

I too had begun to suspect a homebrew job, however recently I came across this photo of a nearly identical trailer belonging to someone in a Land Rover club. Unfortunately they also do not know the make or age.....




Will spray on bedliner stick directly to wood? There is no damp in the wood so far as I have been careful to store the trailer undercover, however going forward and using it in the wet means the lino will have to go at some point - and I'm still not convinced about the cost of the resin ply!
From your advice so far, I'm wondering if I was to remove the existing wood, spray it top and bottom with bedliner then reinstall with tigerseal, would that work?

Edited by ChemicalChaos on Sunday 2nd December 16:42

[shovelheadrob]

Good bedliner sticks to most surfaces if the directions are followed to the letter. I'd suggest that you find out the costs, I had my truck bed done by a local company at "mates rates", that wasn't far off the cost of the phenolic ply to do your trailer & my truck bed is only 8ft × 6ft.