So many of you have seen the cool new trailer I found made from a 1st gen dodge dakota.







you can see from the pics the trailer has some cool features.

1) no rust - just surface rust underneath - which in Illinois means no rust.
2) air shocks! I could put 5 tons of manure in this baby & just pump up the shocks to manage the load (so to speak)
3) It still has the original dakota axel - drum to drum

Point 3 is what I wanted to talk about.

Because the brakes are still there & parts can easily & cheaply be had - I'm toying with the idea of adding hydrolic surge brakes to this trailer or electric over hydrolic brakes of some sort.

& finally - I'm even thinking of adding a hand brake like the old military trailers have so I can park on a hill etc & not have the darn thing roll away - I could set that up on the existing parking brake cables.

Anyone every done something like this? What are the options - what will it take?

Thanks

Surge brakes wouldn't be to hard at all. Get a master cylinder and rig up a mechanism. Or just get a setup from a junk trailer. One old trailer I had had a lock on the surge brakes to use as a parking brake when unhitched.

The E-Brake would be a easy rig up.