No hydraulics are needed to tip Mark Yax’s 4,000-lb. dump trailer. All he has to do is pull a rope from his tractor seat to release the half-cubic yard load. Once it’s empty, the hopper usually swings back into the locked position. If not, a second rope pulls it into place.

“I can dump without getting off the tractor, and hooking it up is easy; no hoses involved,” says Yax.

   Yax also appreciates his minimal investment in the trailer. “I bought the hopper for only $350,” he says. “The sides are 11-gauge steel but reinforced around the top with 1/2-in. steel. It came complete with safety chains. All I had to do was remove the caster wheels.”

   Yax used 2 1/2-in. square steel tubing for the frame and the tongue and mounted a pintle ring hitch.

   The axle is the most unique component. It’s a 1930’s truck I-beam front axle. “I once bought an engine from a guy, and he had the axle laying around,” recalls Yax. “He asked if I wanted it, and I told him to throw it in the trailer. It sat behind the barn for 25 or 30 years before I decided to make some use of it. I cut the springs off and used the spring mounts to bolt underneath the dump hopper.”

   Yax had planned to shorten the axle, which would’ve been a blunder, he admits. “I put the axle on, and it only cleared the hopper by a quarter inch,” he says. “I had forgotten the offset of the rim.”

   To mount newer wheels on the old axle hubs, Yax had to redrill the spindles. He also drilled a hole in the bottom of the hopper for a 2-in. pipe fitting.

   “I mounted a coupling to the outside, so I can use it as a water source for remote pressure washing,” says Yax. “It also allows me to drain it if the hopper catches rainwater.”

   Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Mark S. Yax, 36755 Pettibone Rd., Solon, Ohio 44139  (ph 440-668-6296; valmarktool@aol.com).