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After a half day at Mt. Spokane I loaded up at the parking lot with the usual drive-up on the ramp, then stop at the end, and the bed comes down to the level position. Except this time I was a little more ambitious and went more forward. No problem, except when the bed came slamming down, with another 400 lbs on it, I almost had a "Joe D." oppys, but only 'bent' the tongue. Being "U" 1/8" metal, I exceeded the rating. I got back home okay, and figured it was time to rebuild the tongue. This is just a few notes on metal repair.

Here's the end of the tongue; I cut the bent part off. You can see how I originally extended the tongue, by welding the original "around" the tubular. I needed to "save" the tubular section, because it was part of the locking part for the table top. So I hit the welds with the grinder, to weaken it, then tapped into the cracks with a cold chisel to start the separation task of the "U" metal from the inner tubing.

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Then it was relatively easy to whack the rest off.

The left picture shows two pieces. The left pieces is the new tongue (out of larger, stronger tubing) and the right piece is what's left of the old tongue which was the "U" metal, with the small tubing. The right picture shows them slid into each other. You'll notice I drilled three large holes in the new, larger tubing.

These three holes are weld windows, which make a slick hidden joint, when ground down flush, becomes invisible......

Raising the front end of the trailer for access to install the newly rebuilt tongue........

Here's the tongue installed and painted. You'll notice those three welded holes are "invisible". Only thing left to do is finish up the new wiring that I re-fed through the new tongue.

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Gee.. I'll finish it later, for now I have to quit for the night. Frank and I have another day on the hill tomorrow, and we loaded both our sleds on his trailer.