Hi this may sound a strange request but I’m trying to get a small repair business going for ally tippers and aggregate body’s. I’m only about 6 -8 miles from the A1
I’ve looked on the web and all I can find are the big boys which are charging the earth for deck overlays tailgate repairs and cycle guards repairs and adaptions.so all I’m asking is if you could give me some feed back on weather it’s a good idea before I go ahead.
This is something I do and have done for years, you’re going to have to be prepared to work all weekend on the tippers as they don’t like parking up during the week, another thing is getting the hauliers to have it repaired before it becomes a major job!
Another thing is if you’re buying a lot of alloy you’ll soon be stood out of a fair amount of money as the materials often cost far more than your labour for doing the job, so prompt payers tend to get preferential service!
I’m just in the process of kitting out another mobile set up as I often go to the hauliers premises to do the work.
So do you do deck overlays on site and say if a driver has twisted up a tail gate in a barbergreen or bent up airgate rams butterfly locking hinges they all need fabricating do you do all of that on site…■■?
Yes we can do, if a door is twisted it’s probably better if we take it back to the yard, we do hinge bars and brackets also fit weighers also on site, if the operator parks in a quarry or a yard not suitable I will get them to bring the truck to me,
After being messed about with payment many times I’ve now become a lot more selective of who l work for and try not to have much to do with auto sheets if possible
Cheers for the information I’ll take it on board. I’m going to drop a few cards off to a couple of places and see what comes of it. Another couple of questions if you don’t mind answering them first how do you advertise and where do you acquire you spares from i.e.
If it’s a Wilcox body do you go to them and a PPG body do you go to them for spares…■■? Or do you fabricate everything in house.?
I don’t advertise as ive been doing bodywork since I left school and have been around,driven, repaired and operated trucks all my life,most work now comes by recommendation
There are some parts that are made for say Wilcox like the auto sheet and door control boxes which can be a pain, just say a split door isn’t opening or locking correctly there are 4 air Rams at the rear which can all leak past the seal causing a problem, you’ve then got to change the right one to sort the problem.
often I will buy the parts from the same sort of suppliers that the bodybuilder uses, I often fabricate from scratch, ie ppg hinge bar brackets which are a pain if you want to change a load cell, if you alter the bracket and turn the cell upside down you can change one side without undoing the other, Wilcox usually fit them upside down to start with!
If you’re doing floor overlays make sure you plug them down well as I often re do what someone else has done poorly in the past, if you just weld round the sheets and across the joints the sheets will lift after tipping Tarmac and any cracks or unseald areas will get larger letting tar to get between the original floor and the overlay.
Are you in this line of work at the moment?
I’ve been building / repairing for 25 years I left a well none body builders, the place I’ve gone to has a lovely big workshop that I thought would make a nice repairs bay so at the moment I’m just testing the water.
Moose:
I don’t advertise as ive been doing bodywork since I left school and have been around,driven, repaired and operated trucks all my life,most work now comes by recommendation
There are some parts that are made for say Wilcox like the auto sheet and door control boxes which can be a pain, just say a split door isn’t opening or locking correctly there are 4 air Rams at the rear which can all leak past the seal causing a problem, you’ve then got to change the right one to sort the problem.
often I will buy the parts from the same sort of suppliers that the bodybuilder uses, I often fabricate from scratch, ie ppg hinge bar brackets which are a pain if you want to change a load cell, if you alter the bracket and turn the cell upside down you can change one side without undoing the other, Wilcox usually fit them upside down to start with!
If you’re doing floor overlays make sure you plug them down well as I often re do what someone else has done poorly in the past, if you just weld round the sheets and across the joints the sheets will lift after tipping Tarmac and any cracks or unseald areas will get larger letting tar to get between the original floor and the overlay.Are you in this line of work at the moment?
hi,what thickness /hardness ali do u use to plate the inside walls on say a 3-4 yr old wilcox trailer ,i ask as i did 1 last yr that was holed in several places after being on a rough job .Rather than patch it i fitted a 2500 x 1250 h22 sheet 4mm i was suprised how thin the original sidewall was about 1.5 mm and was burning thru + weld was terrible until i changed from 5356 to a 4043 reel ive got 1 of ours coming in shortly and looks like a similar job,any advice appreciated .
I usually use 5454 when possible, and 5356 SIF 1.2 wire, don’t bother with any other make now, tried many makes in the past and the worst I’ve ever had was Super 6 absolute crap, sent it all back, I would think 4 mm was ok probably thicker than when new!
I often use 6 or 8mm in floors, don’t use 4043 wire on bodies as it’s to soft and doesn’t generally feed well down an 8 meter push pull gun
When you say the weld looked bad what do you mean? Were you spraying it on and burning through
Danny123:
I’ve been building / repairing for 25 years I left a well none body builders, the place I’ve gone to has a lovely big workshop that I thought would make a nice repairs bay so at the moment I’m just testing the water.
Sounds like you’ve got the job sorted, I’m sure you’ll find plenty of work, there’s plenty that need attention the problem is some operators don’t want to pay to get the job sorted properly!
The best of luck moose
We used to have an alloy bodied 6w with twin 8mm floors and before it was sold on, the back quarter of the floor was starting to lift in a blister type effect. What could cause that?
Another question, what are peoples’ opinions on the likes of Boweld, Kelberg etc?
Moose:
I usually use 5454 when possible, and 5356 SIF 1.2 wire, don’t bother with any other make now, tried many makes in the past and the worst I’ve ever had was Super 6 absolute crap, sent it all back, I would think 4 mm was ok probably thicker than when new!
I often use 6 or 8mm in floors, don’t use 4043 wire on bodies as it’s to soft and doesn’t generally feed well down an 8 meter push pull gun
When you say the weld looked bad what do you mean? Were you spraying it on and burning through
hi,was getting a lot of spatter and burning thru, ive always used 5356 ,i cut a piece from the sidewall and took it to the boss at the welding supplier and he suggested the soft reel which tbh spread like silicone,those sidewalls are paper thin when new ,must be to keep the weight down !!!. i use a 4 roller ewm welder now with a 2m torch its a bit of a pain lifting in ,under the tailgate with the forklift but after years of struggling with reel on gun 0.5 kg reels its much better weld.
Moose:
I don’t advertise as ive been doing bodywork since I left school and have been around,driven, repaired and operated trucks all my life,most work now comes by recommendation
There are some parts that are made for say Wilcox like the auto sheet and door control boxes which can be a pain, just say a split door isn’t opening or locking correctly there are 4 air Rams at the rear which can all leak past the seal causing a problem, you’ve then got to change the right one to sort the problem.
often I will buy the parts from the same sort of suppliers that the bodybuilder uses, I often fabricate from scratch, ie ppg hinge bar brackets which are a pain if you want to change a load cell, if you alter the bracket and turn the cell upside down you can change one side without undoing the other, Wilcox usually fit them upside down to start with!
If you’re doing floor overlays make sure you plug them down well as I often re do what someone else has done poorly in the past, if you just weld round the sheets and across the joints the sheets will lift after tipping Tarmac and any cracks or unseald areas will get larger letting tar to get between the original floor and the overlay.Are you in this line of work at the moment?
hi,those top wilcox rams are poor quality,if they get wet and it freezes ive seen them pop the seals and start to ■■■■ out ,the last 2 i fitted i also fitted 2 motocross gaiters to keep the crap off the rod.
Danny123:
Cheers for the information I’ll take it on board. I’m going to drop a few cards off to a couple of places and see what comes of it. Another couple of questions if you don’t mind answering them first how do you advertise and where do you acquire you spares from i.e.
If it’s a Wilcox body do you go to them and a PPG body do you go to them for spares…■■? Or do you fabricate everything in house.?
have you tried getting parts from wilcox or even getting them to answer the phone in the parts dept !!!
Rear panels are 3/16 and the rest are 4 mm if you are putting wear plates for the sides in it’s always 6mm plugged the rear sheet on a floor is always 8mm the rest is 6mm all hard ally for the floor I always cut out 8" slits and follow the v pan lips that way you will be sure you’ve got plenty of meat to weld to. if you need anything doing and your in the Peterborough area please contact me or spread the word.
This is most definitely not my field, but what I would say is about starting out. I have found over the years quite reliably that the ones who make the most fuss repeating themselves over and again that: “Don’t worry about the money I’ll see you alright etc etc” are the ones who are going to let you down. So many times they will have started with several little jobs to get you on the hook and then
comes the big one which they have no intention of paying for. I have found that your competitors are not necessarily your enemy, they will frequently share information about who not to do business with. They will know who are the ones who go on a merry-go-round of suppliers and contractors, running up a big bill with one and then moving on to someone else and so on until they have to pay the first company in order to get their lorry fixed. Get to know the grapevine about who is a bad payer.
^^ I totally agree!
Moose:
^^ I totally agree!
Now we’ve done all the small jobs when are we doing my gates ? Don’t worry about the money lol !
I’ll find time! Lol