I Built a Tire Trailer!

[extrashaky]

Originally Posted by Stang70Fastback

I'm wary of all HF products to be honest. In fact, even though everyone says their jacks are fine, I still spent considerably more money on a different brand jack to ensure it would be a good one.

I actually have a Harbor Freight jack. The difference is this: If it fails, by design it's not going to drop. Either it will not lift at all or it will leak down slowly, and I learned at an early age never to use the jack to support the car when working on it. The jack isn't going to fail on me while traveling 70 MPH.

I have some other HF stuff. I have their big drill press, which is okay for my purposes when compared to a $1K+ press. It's sitting on an HF table. Nearby is an HF rolling stool and an HF creeper. I have a handful of HF tools, mostly big dumb tools like hammers, cheaters and pry bars. And I have free HF flashlights scattered all over my house.

I wouldn't even consider buying one of their welders, though, just because I know how frustrating it is to work with a shitty welder (I went with a nice Miller instead). When it was time for an air compressor, HF had a $180 unit with the same basic specs as the $600 unit I ultimately bought, but I bought $600 once rather than $180 four times. I have HF's bench grinder which scares the crap out of me because it vibrates a 300 lb workbench so much that any tools sitting on the bench jump around like popcorn. I'm kind of worried it's going to come apart one day and take off part of my head.

So something I don't use a lot that is "good enough" to get the job done when I need it, I'll buy that at HF. Something they can't really screw up, same thing. Something that, if it fails, can only fail catastrophically, HF scares me.

[Stang70Fastback]

Fair enough. I will point out, though, that those tools come pre-assembled, which means you have no idea what's going on in there until it explodes. This trailer came completely disassembled, which means I put the whole thing together and was able to judge the quality of the parts and the construction of the entire trailer. So that's why I can say I'm confident that it will be fine, because I basically built it from scratch and I know it is fine. If I had bought it completely assembled, I might be more likely to take your position of, "Well who knows if those bolts will stay together, etc..." because I didn't actually assemble it.

[gravitylover]

What hitch are you using? It seems like you're using the tow bolt holes. I like how high it sits.

[Stang70Fastback]

Originally Posted by gravitylover

What hitch are you using? It seems like you're using the tow bolt holes. I like how high it sits.

Click through to the blog for all of the details about the hitch, including a video of me installing it on the car

[bababooey]

thats a pretty slick set up using the tow bolts

[covance]

looks great!

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