Need to make a machine, help/ideas needed.

[Wally_Welder]

I hope this fits. I need to make a machine and would like some ideas.. I know what I want it to do, but don't know how to go about it. Here is my dilemma. You see, I have two house trailers parked side by side (6 ft apart wasn't my doing). One of them I fixed up as it didn't need to much work. The other had been robbed of copper and all of the aluminum siding, along with 75% of the outer 2x4 studs. There is a leaning power pole between the two. The shell of a trailer is starting to lean towards the one I live in. The old trailer needs to fall over but not the way its slightly leaning. The area is swampy (no trucks or heavy equipment) There is no trees or anything to anchor to. (no winches or come-a-longs) I have no chains or ropes 500ft long to nearest tree, nor do I have a winch. I do have a welder i can use, long pieces of heavy metal, and many different types of fasteners large and small. I first thought of making a huge jack and just jack it up till it falls over but there would be a risk of the block holding it up would crill over before it flips, basically landing back on me and or the jack and maybe tipping over against the pole and my live in trailer anyway. Just looks very unsafe to do that. My second thought would be to make some kind of draw rod and hook it from one side of roof to the other side of the floor and kinda draw it in with like a big screw until it collapses like a parallelogram. Any ideas on what kind of machine i need to make? A jack type machine or a drawbar thingy.. or how would you get the roof of the old trailer laying on the ground? All interior walls are gone.

[Wally_Welder]

in case your wondering how they got here if its so swampy. This area used to be dry. State road crew came in about 5 years ago and put in drainpipes... draining directly onto our property.... well that makes a swamp. No lie, previous owner says he always poured concrete in those drainpipes and stopped them up so the water would run beside the road the way its supposed to and not on him... I guess they heard he sold the property and figured now they could fix the drain... I'm not doing anything shady but it has crossed my mind.. :-)

[mccutter]

Pictures are sort of relevant here...

You just want to knock the "bad" MH over away from the other, correct? I see a couple floorjacks pushing up on a 4x4 with a 2x4 spreader against the inside ceiling "trusses" on the side nearest the other trailer. Pump the jacks to put pressure on the roof until you can see gaps. Then with a sawzall with long "demo" blade, cut the walls away from the floor and/or ceiling away from the walls. A free-standing ladder would help here. Hopefully it will collapse away from the other MH.

I see the need for more "delicate" disassembly to "do it right". Remove the windows on the outside wall (or all of them) and go to town with the sawzall in strategic places to weaken it. Get some ropes and a few likely lads and see if you'all can pull it away. Again, pics...

BTW, Welcome Aboard!

[toprecycler]

Ruff drawing showing using a hand come-a-long and pulley attached to the upper roof on the leaning side, and a pulley on the lower side which you want it to lean to pull over.
You could use pulleys to pull rope, or wire rope cable to change directions so you are not in the building doing the actual pulling. If you can get the MH walls and roof leaning away from other MH, then you could have a big chain/ cable wrapped around the bottom of wall studs, and pull on them with a truck to take them out one by one, til it collapses on itself?

Hopefully this might spark some ideas to your actual situation. You can do a lot of heavy lifting/ pulling with rope and tackles too. Think of how the Egyptians built the pyramids with just simple ropes, pulleys, and levers. Sometimes necessity is mother of all inventions, and this allows you to get creative. Just try to be as safe as possible.

And complain to the state that they need to divert their drain pipes away from your home. Or they need to buy you a replacement home in a dry spot.

Pictures attached of come-a-longs at harbor freight stores.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[okdirt]

I've demo'ed a bunch of mobiles, used to do them for insurance companies and a dealer. Sounds like most all the goodies are are gone, save the windows and scrap the aluminum. Same for the frame and axles, cut out the cross members and cut the rails into 15 or 20 pieces and scrap them to.
Now, do yourself a favor and rent a small track hoe with a thumb for a day. You'll be surprised how much you can do with it in a controlled manner. Rip out one end and start down one outside wall tearing it out till the roof starts to sag, say to within 4 feet of the deck. Back up get a handful with the hoe and pull. Will come down easy and you have control.
Pull the crap into a pile off the deck and start picking off the decking and floor joists. Save the aluminum HVAC duct, good stuff for the scrap. Cut up the frame and load it while you've got the hoe, I'm old and lazy. Little scrape and cleaning of the site and it's nothing but a bad memory.

[randydupree]

Originally Posted by okdirt

I've demo'ed a bunch of mobiles, used to do them for insurance companies and a dealer. Sounds like most all the goodies are are gone, save the windows and scrap the aluminum. Same for the frame and axles, cut out the cross members and cut the rails into 15 or 20 pieces and scrap them to.
Now, do yourself a favor and rent a small track hoe with a thumb for a day. You'll be surprised how much you can do with it in a controlled manner. Rip out one end and start down one outside wall tearing it out till the roof starts to sag, say to within 4 feet of the deck. Back up get a handful with the hoe and pull. Will come down easy and you have control.
Pull the crap into a pile off the deck and start picking off the decking and floor joists. Save the aluminum HVAC duct, good stuff for the scrap. Cut up the frame and load it while you've got the hoe, I'm old and lazy. Little scrape and cleaning of the site and it's nothing but a bad memory.

This is the plan,plus buy a few bags of concrete and divert the water the other way.

[Ironman]

The mini excavator with a thumb makes the most sense, if you have the money to do it.

If not I would take a 6 ft log and some chain or 1/2" cable, and dig a hole 3-4 ft deep about 20 ft from the trailer. Bury the log horizontally with the cable tied around the middle of the log. Attach a comalong to the cable sticking out of the ground and start cranking. Pull the shack over on its side.

If you can find solid ground within 100 ft, attach a cable, and a tractor or 4x4 would pull that thing over

[Wally_Welder]

I don't think anything you bury in a swamp will hold, plus my 48yr old back don't like to use shovels much anymore. Other than me and my 13 yr old son, there is nobody to help. We don't have ANY money to spend whatsoever. (is why we scrap around and try to make what we need, sell scrap to buy welding rods etc). I would post a pic, but really a scrapped out trailer looks the same as any other. I just really don't see a solution that fits, other than paying out some serious $$ for someone to come with a dozer and winch with 1000ft of cable...
https://www.shopfloortalk.com/forums...1&d=1659800596

[mccutter]

At least the grass grows nice...

[digger doug]

Originally Posted by Wally_Welder

We don't have ANY money to spend whatsoever. (is why we scrap around and try to make what we need, sell scrap to buy welding rods etc).

So how are you posting here with no money to spend ?