"It's only 24 ft. long, making it easy to get into fields and driveways," say Quentin Fry and Sons, Montpelier, Ohio, who built a 1,000-bu. bottom dump grain trailer by welding together two Killbros No. 400 center dump hopper boxes and mounting them on a pair of tandem axles removed from a car hauler.

"We had been pulling the two Killbros dump wagons behind tractors," says Quentin. "We had a semi tractor that we used mainly to haul big straw bales on a special-built trailer. The semi tractor sat idle during corn harvest so we decided to make use of it. Most commercial bottom dump trailers of comparable capacity are 35 to 40 ft. long making them hard to get in and out of fields and driveways. The key to the shorter length of our trailer is that it's 11 ft. deep and is equipped with small 15-in. dia. wheels so it sets close to the ground. The sides are just low enough that our combine's unloading auger can reach over them."

The Frys made the frame of the trailer from 10-in. I-beams. To increase capacity they cut off the front side of the front box and used sheet metal to extend it 5 ft., sloping the bottom upward toward the front. The front box holds 554 bu., and the rear box holds 450 bu. They repainted the entire trailer and welded a 5th wheel steel plate and pin underneath the front box. A roller chain and sprocket is used to crank open each bottom door.