Newbie getting ready to cut the doors....

[seanm734]

Hello All,

I've been gathering great information from this site for weeks now. So far I've got my tank (240 gal compressor) , trailer, and I've built my FB. I drew my door lines on my tank about a week ago but I have been a little timid about actually cut them. Today I decided to give it a shot. I cut the top lines for both of my doors and welded the hinges on one of the doors. Here's my question, the end caps on my tank has about 4" of flat surface before it starts rounding. With my current "design" I have my doors going about 2" into the end cap. Is or will there be any issue with doing this? I wanted to get as much space as possible and I also thought by having the end cap attached to the door it would help the door keep it's shape. Please let me know what you guys think.

Thanks,
Sean

e.

[Big T]

Welcome aboard! If you're building a RF then you'll have the BP gap at one end of the tank so you don't want anything over that. It'll obstruct airflow and burn anything that you have over it.

[seanm734]

Big T, Thanks for the quick response. The calcu says my FB throat should be 147.46 in² and from what I read the opening for the BP should be the same or a little bigger. I will still have about 7" to the end of the tank and I believe the ID is about 29.5", also the tank doesn't get very narrow at the end. Do you think that's still cutting it too close?

[Dirtytires]

Cutting into the bell makes it hard to seal...

Just a reminder on the hinges....you need to put in a spacer before you tack on the hinges or your door won’t close with the gasket installed. Also, I prefer to cut off the door completely to frame it out.

[Frank_Cox]

Welcome aboard!
Yep, what they said. Only thing I will add is your BP gap should be 50% or so of the throat opening. Not larger than the throat.
Also like DT said stay outta the tank heads as they will mess with door keeping its shape.

[seanm734]

Thanks guys! My original thought was to stay away from the end caps. Would I be ok cutting right at the weld?

[JRINNE]

On mine I cut about 1” away from the weld so when I put the strapping on the door it would seal better since the weld is sticking up.

[seanm734]

Hi guys,

I took your advise with the doors and it seemed to work out great. Very minimal warp, The bottom of the doors are out about an 1/8" and I can push them closed with some force. I believe the latches I plan on putting on will make a tight seal. I also got my FB mounted.

I have a couple questions.

This tank was an air compressor, there was lots of rust inside but no signs of oil. I wire wheeled the inside and washed it with dish soap. Do I need to have a fire in the CC? Or can I just do a hot burn straight from the FB?

It seems most mount their rack rails welded to the door opening and to the back of the tank. Any reason why I shouldn't have them stand off the BP instead?

My trailer..... Hindsight is truly 20/20. Let me start with saying I don't have much welding experience so I was nervous about building a trailer from scratch. I purchased a harbor freight trailer that's rated to carry 1720lbs. I figured this would be adequate. At the time I didn't think about the WC or the weight of the BF and shadow plate. All being built with 1/4". So here's my plan to correct my issue. I want to run a piece of 2"x2" square tube (1/4" wall) from the back of the trailer and out past the existing tongue. Making this the new tongue of the trailer. I would add 4 more cross members and attach all the new and existing members to the 2x2. I will also add another 2k axle behind the existing axle. I know when it's all said and done I could have built a better trailer for less but I can't return the existing HF trailer and I don't have any other uses for it. So I'm trying to turn coal into gold. Any suggestions or input on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again for the help

[Dirtytires]

No need to burn it out. Scrape the rust best you can. A little vegetable oil at burn-in will seal the inside.

Rack guides work either way. Benefit to attaching at door frame and back is simplicity. Less pieces to cut and easier to scrape bottom without the extra supports.

You need to be careful trying to modify a harbor freight trailer. Mainly, they really aren’t built that well to begin with. With that said, it would be easy enough to add steel to the deck but the bigger factor here is going to be suspension. I’m willing to bet the axle, springs, tires and rims will all need replaced/upgraded before you can safely say you increased capacity. At that point, you are spending a lot of money to fix a $175 trailer.

Frank sells a couple of trailer plans if you are interested. Buy new or build one but I think your HF setup will leave you stranded.

And almost forgot, your door warp can be fixed with a bottle jack and a few chains. If you have not seen it done, search some old threads or let us know. It’s a little work but pretty effective.

[towtruck]

Sell the trailer. You'll thank me later.

Start over with a trailer that is large enough or build one from scratch.

[AndrewPalmer71]

On the trailer, had it not been a bolted together harbor freight trailer, I would attempt to strengthen it like you suggested. Since it's a harbor freight cheapie I would do like the others suggested. Sell it ,or keep it and find an old utility trailer on craigslist to add steel cross members to.

Sent from my SM-J727V using Tapatalk

[Chromeski]

You are already not happy with the trailer and for good reason. Get a new trailer or build one. The smoker will last forever get a trailer that you don't worry about holding up. Frank does have plans for a little trailer that may work if you do decide to build one.

[seanm734]

Thanks guys are all the input. I'm going to weight this beast once its done and then make my decision about the trailer. Harbor freight was sued and had to stop selling trailers for over a year because they were such poor quality and dangerous. The trailers are all now "DOT complaint" and It cost me $450 bucks that's why I'm not so quick to ditch it yet. Back to the smoker, I got the BP and chimney in yesterday and I actually did a burn-in. I got the CC up too 380 on the FB side and 350 on the far side.

[towtruck]

Looking good!

[Dirtytires]

Don’t get too hot....you can warp it. 380 is super risky, in my book.

[Big T]