A few updates.
M35A2-AZ came over and we (he) welded up a few additions and we fixed a lot of little dents on the trailer edge by heating and beating them straight.
Soni (M920) told me that the area where the wood breaks on the M870 trailers is on the gooseneck. This is because the longest spans between cross members on the trailer are up on the gooseneck. We added 2 pieces of angle and 2 pieces of channel to make the spans smaller. I guess I'll find out if there was some good reason that Shoals didn't do this to begin with. I would've liked to put diamond plate up there like Soni did, but since I already had the wood and diamond plate is expensive, I went this route. The original cross member up there was also straightened. I only have one poor photo of what it looked like before the new cross members were added.
It seems to have plenty of cross members under the main deck. You can see why this trailer is so heavy. The previous owner cut out the stake pockets, but thats probably a good thing because I won't have to cut the deck wood to fit around them.
Gooseneck steps and spare tire carrier. These were added by the previous owner.
One of the widening triangle pockets had a piece missing, so a new one was welded in.
Aluminum ramps. The ramp angle matches the trailer almost perfectly. Despite not being "original," I really like them. You can move one around by yourself unlike any of the steel ramps of this size. They say they're good for 23,500 lbs per axle, so they should work with anything you'd want to load over the rear of the trailer. For anything heavier, I can load over the front of the trailer.
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The next step is paint prep.