Can I call myself a Flat Bedder?

Oh man excellent advice, I appreciate ya. Ive already took one of those wheels out, and headed down to the local bearing shop. I was told Aero parts are high dollar as hell, so Ill cut them out of the picture when I can and plan on replacing that stuff locally.

You hit the nail on the head with the velcro at the top bows. More than half of them are loose. Thats step #2 in getting this trailer back in shape.

Step 3 is fixing those front hooks, they are bent to hell. Im still getting the hang of proper procedure for latching / unlatching the trailer, and Ive already caught myself trying to unlatch the front end first with the rear still tight. Not a very good idea!

$2700 for a new tarp is what Aero quoted me PLUS install of 22 hours at $75 a freakin hour!!! I guess ill live with all those patches for a while longer yet. YIKES!

How about the draw type curtains on the back? Are they easier to get along with than the roll up type? Im already annoyed with the three piece crank set LOL. $275 for a new back tarp. They said Ill need a new header to do this, I assume because of the weld-on hooks on the header? Maybe ill just order the pulleys and weld the rest on myself.

 

I pulled the air dam off the top in anticipation of buying just a standard flatbed. UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH what a mistake! Volvo uses crimped-in inserts that lay/drop-in to the fiberglass portion of the roof to secure the air dam on top.

Those #### inserts have to be cut or ground out, and then they fall inwards. They tend to roll around and make a ton of noise, like marbles in a can. The solution is to remove the entire headliner!!!!!!!!!!! You gotta pull the seats, the cabinets EVERYTHING out of the dang truck to drop the 2 piece headliner, and replace with new ones. Then you get to fix all the little parts that broke when pulling the headliner. Not a good deal.

Ive already done this once before (when I was grain hauling), and im really REALLY not sure I want to spend another solid 2 days labor repeating the process. And, to make matters even worse you cant even get to the inserts that point forward. I epoxied them in last time, no crimp! I have no idea what the heck Volvo was thinking but the way its put together you would actually have to remove main body components to do it right.

Wing you say? LOL Maybe................

 

Looks good.

Mine is: 31800 full of fuel (200 gallons) and an APU. That weight is without gear too, no chain or boomers, and I still have put snow chain back on for the winter. There are a couple dozen vboards that came with the trailer, about 3' long.

I gotta find me a couple new boxes for the trailer. It only has one currently, and its beat to death lol. Looks like a trailer tire blew and tore it up pretty good.

Trailer has 24.5" tires and wheels. My truck has LP 22.5's, at some point ill probably go down to 22's on the trailer.