I purchased and assembled one of the smaller 4'x4' models in the early 1980s while stationed at Ft Knox Ky, and except for the wheel bearings it has been trouble free.
I was attending the Armor Officer Basic Course at the time, and at some point I realized that all the stuff I had acquired while at the school was not going to fit into my rather small car for the trip to the next duty station. Having heard nothing but horror stories about using contract shippers, I started looking around for other options. I came across the Harbor Freight advertisement in a Popular Mechanics magazine, and the wheels began spin...
I placed a mail order as there was no internet in those days, and a few weeks later I received a note to report to the First Sergeant at the Unit Orderly Room. When I arrived the 1SG asked me what the hell was that pile of crap in his Orderly Room? I explained it was a kit for a trailer, and he looked at me like I had grown a second head, blinked, and told me to make it disappear.
I took it back to my 3rd story BOQ room and began to assemble it there that afternoon. It only took a few hours with hand tools to assemble, and that was when I realized I had a problem...it would not fit back down the staircase...not even if I took the axle off. Fortunately the BOQ room had a small outdoor balcony, and I was able to lower it with a long rope down the 3 stories to the ground.
Next I slapped on a plate, hooked it up to the hitch on my 1978 German Ford Fiesta, and off we went to the local lumber yard...no Lowes or Home Depot in those days. I had spent some time planning how to build and attach a 4'x4'x2' box with a lid, so I already had a list of materials and tools I would need. I bought a couple 4'x8' sheets of 1/2" exterior plywood, half a dozen clear-grain 1"x4"x8' Pine boards, some hinges, mending plates, screws, bolts, and other hardware, then strapped it down on the bare trailer frame with ratchet straps and headed back to the base to get to work.
Over the next 2 weekends, I got a lot of strange looks from other residents and passers-by as I cut, drilled, assembled, and finally painted my new creation with a couple coats of a nice bright red oil-based enamel.
When the end of the course and moving day finally came around, I loaded all of the heaviest, least fragile items into the trailer, closed and locked the lid, added duffle bags of uniforms into a car-top carrier mounted on top of the trailer lid, and finally loaded all the fragile items into the Fiesta. A few hours spent out-processing, and I hit the road towards the new duty station on the other side of the country.
At first I was a bit concerned about the weight of the loads in both the car and the trailer, so I stopped often to check the temps of the tires and the wheel bearings, but everything stayed cool, and I pressed on. I was used to getting around 35-40 Mpg in the unloaded Fiesta in mixed city-highway driving, but was quite surprised to find that I was averaging 40-45 Mpg while towing this heavy load. I also noted that the car-trailer combo did not seem to have the same tendency to gradually slow down while climbing long grades. I don't really know how to account for this improvement in performance other than perhaps it was some freak combination of aerodynamics that was allowing the trailer to "draft" along in the wake of the car (sort of like what you see nascar drivers doing).
To wrap up a long story, I arrived with all my household goods in great shape, and the great new trailer no worse for the wear of the almost 2000 mile journey. I still own and occasionally use the trailer, and the only problem has been a need to replace the wheel bearings once due to water seepage into the hubs thru the in-board Axle seals. Probably could have avoided that if I had been more carefull to keep the hubs packed full of grease on a regular basis, but this one did not come with grease fittings, so it required jacking, removing the wheels, and dis-assembling the hubs/bearings/axles.
Yes, I am that old...
CptA
