This is part two of what will turn out to be a lot of blogs about the little utility trailer that is being converted over to a versatile, do everything trailer.  Last time you were introduced to the little Pack Mule, this time lets focus on the cheap part of this conversion project.

If you recall, The Pack Mule needed a few things to be road worthy.  First priority was tires.  The set it was wearing were cracked and worn.  The Wife hit up Craigslist and found a set of used tires that would fit.  A quick trip, and $15 later (plus another $20 to have them mounted on the trailer’s wheels) and the tire situation was fixed.

Next on the to-do list was new lights.  As you can see the old lights were trashed.  This was easily fixed with a $20 set of trailer lights from Academy.  Wiring them was straight forward and took less than an hour to remove the old wiring and lights and replace them with the new set.

Old Lights

New Lights

The last thing that I wanted to get done quickly was add a kayak rack to the trailer so that I could carry four kayaks, and tons of gear to the beach.  The rack had to be something anyone could do plus be removable so the trailer could be used to haul larger loads if needed.  I chose to use wood due to the fact that the average outdoorsman may not have access to a welder and the fact that I found some for free.  No I didn’t steal it.  A local lawn tractor dealership had tons of leftover packaging that they were getting rid of so I grabbed what I needed from their scrap pile.

Scrap wood frame

Loaded at the beach

I also added some pool noodles to protect the kayaks so that was another $10.

So total cost on the build so far

Tires – $35 ($15 for the set, $20 to mount)

Lights – $20

Wood for rack – Free

Pool noodles and wire ties – $10