Converting Roller Trailer to Bunks
 

The rollers on my trailer are shot. In concept I would like to "Replacing Your Trailer's Rollers With Bunks".

What I was thinking about doing is removing the rollers but retaining the contraptions that held the rollers and securing bunks to these. This would allow for me to put 4 parallel planks. I would be looking for planks long enough such that the bunks spanned front and rear sets of rollers. TO do this I would need to locate some sort of "U" clamps (where at the top of the "U" sort of dog ears out left and right such that the U went around the roller support and the dog eared sections could be screwed into the bunks. The article in the link above suggests that cypress is the wood of preference. I suspect this is because it is water tolerent. Before reading this I had thought about using some of the new home deck material which never needs to be painted, I believe they are some form of a PVC board that has some flex to it.

Alternative to this would be to remove the brackets that hold the rollers and secure bunks to the brackets that hold the roller holders. This would lower the bunks by ~ 6-8" placing the bunks just slightly above the trailer frame. This by itself would only allow for 2 parallel bunks towards the inside of the hull I would then need to find a way to add more support along the sides of the hull.

In either case, I also need a way to secure some guides.

Yet another alternative is to see if I can find some sort of a "kit"...I need to research these more.

If anyone has made this conversion, please let me know what worked as well as what didn't work.

Thanks!

I converted an old easy loader roller trailer to a bunk.
I took all the articulating roller supports and brackets off and used the steel square stock from what I took apart to fabricate supports for the new bunks.

It was pretty easy, but you have to be able to mig weld.

I used treated lumber and indoor/outdoor carpet for the bunks. I bought the bunk brackets from a trailer supply house and also some keel rollers for the middle from the same place.

have all you need here trailerpartsdepot.com doing one right now..

thanks - I'll call trailer parts depot and see if they can formulate a kit for me, I don't know what parts to order so it would be a guessing game for me. The trailer is old and I did not see a branded label on it so it may not be as easy as saying I need to convert an ez-rider.

or

I need to find a welder somewhere because this is not a skill I possess.

I caled Trailer Parts Depot and they were unwilling/unable to tell me what I might need to do the job (I understand it may be a liability thing). Anyways I have some idea of what I need, but it is still a bit of a crap shoot and unfortunately it is a mail order game so it could drag out. If I figure this out i'll be sure to write up how I did it.

I had read that cypress is a wood that is often used and preferred for bunks. I called my local lumber yard and they don't have cypress but they recommended southern yellow pine. Does this seem like a reasonable substitution?

If it's pressure treated it will be fine.

Actually, Myco recommends just regular Grade-A pine, not even pressure treated.