New England B.S. Thread

Where they are now - when the ramp is down and you're loading/unloading, they're protected by the ramp. They aren't at risk of being clipped by the ramp when raising/lowering it, or when you're moving the supports. And, you're unlike to ever drive with the ramp down. Removing the ramp - sure, just depends if your use case would ever have you removing the ramp.

(sorry now that I look again, ramp"s", I see it's a split ramp now)

 

Right, it prevents me from removing the ramps. I'll have to look to see if I can come up with a solution where they're still protected.

 

It's exactly what I wanted. Insurance is getting me the reg/title application now.

He had it registered as homemade because he couldn't find any manufacturer/model/VIN on it so I'm going to do the same. I believe it is actually a Pequea 8012S that lost all its decals at some point.

 

Howdy all - been a while. Frame is fixed/repaired and I'm respraying the skids/sliders now then remounting them all with some much needed new stainless steel hardware. Hopefully I'll be back on the trails soon!

 

My dad has a trailer like that. His brake lights and directionals are mounted on the fenders, just behind the wheels. It moves them forward a bit and still in an area unlikely to be hit. His trailer does not have a tail gate. It does have a marker light at the rear on the trailer frame.

 

Ah - yeah if you want to remove the ramps, yeah. You would need to disconnect them every time. Sounds like a pain in the arse if you do it all the time.

I don't know much about trailers, I assumed the brake lights needed to be at or within X inches from the rear of the trailer?

 

Maybe. It's a really old trailer and it's a tilt bed trailer also. Since there's no tail gate, there weren't a lot of other options unless a tab was welded on at the rear but it would get beat up.

 

What's up with fab shops just generally being complete shit shows with products and delivery? I'm not calling out any shop in particular, it just seems like it's an industry-wide problem, and I don't mean just due to the plague (although plenty of places are using it as the catch-all excuse these days).

Is it as simple as good designers/fabricators not having good business skills and not wanting or not seeing the need to hire a business manager or "office person"? Is it places growing too fast, spending too fast, and not investing in the business backend? Some third factor? All of the above?

 

Freight is a legit issue at the moment. There's not enough freight trucks and way too much shit that needs transport around Mericuh. Maybe said shop took more orders than they can resonably handle in an expected amount of time, but likely freight or lack there of is the main cause. People just cant get the raw materials to make stuff, and when they do shipping is backed up for weeks.

 

Damn it, @mach1man001 !

 

Yeah, what's he doing out there? Playing grab ass with lot lizards? Hamma down, Snowman!

 

Nothing's easy at the registry. They kicked it back saying I need to have him put the VIN on the bill of sale. The old registration doesn't actually have a VIN, but apparently MA assigned one because my insurance agent found it and put it on the registration application.

This wouldn't be as big a deal at all if I had been able to go up and deal with someone, but the virus is apparently a poor excuse for them to only allow people to drop and go.

 

I can shed some light on this!

I work in aerospace. All of global manufacturing was shut down for a month in March 2020. It has taken (still taking) a while for recovery.

So, I work in aerospace. If we need, say, steel tubing - that comes from a steel mill. The steel mill can and WILL prioritize us way over y'all getting toys for your trucks.

The order of precedence (roughly) would be government and military, then aerospace and medical, then automotive, then truck toys.

So when steel mill A comes back on line, they have to give it to us first. Y'all are wayyyyy down the list. So when all these fab shops had 12+ week lead times for a set of simple sliders, it's because they just couldn't get material.

Then, they CAN eventually get something, but it's usually not the same quality since they had to source it from someone else along the supply chain who is not within the aerospace supply chain, just doing non-aero work (IE: I am qualified to send you an aerospace quality component, but you're using it on a ground engine, so there's a lot less paperwork behind it - and sometimes, the material grades for aero are A and B, but for everyone else can be A thru D, but it's easier to just get to A and B all the time, since it costs about the same, usually).

Beyond that, I do agree some of these fab shops (I'll be with you and not name anyone in particular) have piss poor customer service and communications. We have one supplier in our supply chain who is a shop of 3-4 people, they are our best, most consistent, and most responsive supplier.

but this whole thing has rewritten history. Supply chain teachings are already rewritten, we now have to have multiple sources - but on different continents. So, if we have a main supplier in Texas, we have to have a second supplier in South America, or in Europe. PLUS a third in the chain, just in case, that one's a little more free to be on the same continents as the others.

The pandemic is not an excuse - it's a legitimate reason that everything is jacked up. Aerospace is just starting to get out of the worst of it. (I won't get into anything more than that in the fear of bridging into political). Customer service is a different ballgame though - I do agree some of these fab shops have fancy websites but when you start talking to them are very much so a fly by night operation.

https://www.cirium.com/thoughtcloud/cirium-weekly-covid-19-updates/

 

In my industry the materials costs are just going out of control. We are at 103% over what we were just a year ago on wood products. That's the worst of the increases. The steel stud manufacturers just announced a 35% increase, gypsum products 30% and fiberglass is about 25%. And then the materials just don't get to us in the time frame anyone is used to. I need to order regular unfaced fiberglass batt insulation about 2 weeks in advance. This was a common stock item that if it was less than say a 20k sq ft order I wouldn't need to order it in advance at all. It's going to take a while to shake this one out.

 

can you just register it as homemade? that's what i did with my old trailer. i don't know what the weight limit is

 

I’m hoping it goes back down come fall. I met strong resistance from most people I talked to about building my shop at this time. All stood to make money on me, all advise me to wait a little.

 

That's what I'm doing because it was registered as homemade before. Insurance found the old reg and put a VIN on the registration application (it's clearly some number MA assigned at some point, not something from a trailer manufacturer). I have no idea why there's a VIN and I don't think it was on the old registration but I'll have to look when I get home. I don't know if it's better to get insurance to create a new form with no VIN on it or to write up a bill of sale with that mystery VIN.

 

oh weird. mine totally had a vin but i'd long lost the title when i moved up here so i just did homemade haha

 

It is weird. I know MA assigns VINs for trailers but I didn't think they did that for anything 3000 lbs or less. This one doesn't have brakes so it definitely wouldn't have been rated higher at any point.

This is what insurance came up with for the RTA. 2016 Homemade LE4000 matches the old reg the guy gave me. I don't think there was a VIN on that reg, so I'm afraid when they see that they'll freak out again.

 

yeah i just checked my reg and there's no vin