I've got a '75 Pickup so when I saw this thing on craiglist I couldn't resist... Same era, but it's a long bed. Eventually going to paint it blue to match my truck. Paid too much for it ($200) but the dude was hard up so I didn't feel like arguing him down. Anyway the reason I was looking is I'm about to drive Maine-Louisiana and I've got a little bit too much stuff for my truck so I wanted a little trailer. Ended up with this, oops... I'm not going to put much weight in it, maybe 500lbs (also towing with a Tacoma not the '75 4-banger) but I need to get it highway safe for the trip. Figured I'd see what people think.

It looks rough but the frame is actually fine, nothing but surface rust anywhere on it. The bed is rotted out pretty much entirely on the bottom because some idiot laid plywood down and then let it turn into dirt but the crossmembers are maybe 70% ok and frame mounts are 80%. Eventually I'll probably put a steel floor in but for now I'm just going to do a little reinforcement welding to the frame mounts and then self-tap a 3/4" CDX ply floor to the crossmembers. I'm also putting on new shocks (Gabriels, nothing special) and I think I'm going to replace the U-bolts mainly cause I'd like to get a closer look at the plate on the underside that the u-bolts go through, it has a little bit of rust on one side. Also need to pull the brake drums and inspect the bearings, they feel nice and tight but there's a slight rub in one wheel. I think it's probably just a brake pad catching. I'll probably pull the pads and the rest of the brake hardware out while I'm in there. Then there's the obvious stuff - lights, a plate, check the safety chains. Hitch is solid with a new safety latch.

Am I missing anything? What would you do to consider this highway safe? Am I crazy to pull a truck bed trailer long distance? I know people mostly use em for around town and off-roading but I figure if it's fixed up good and not heavily loaded it out to pull fine.

Anyone know if it's possible to buy those plates that the leaf spring u-bolts go into (Toyota calls em 'Spring Assembly Seat')? I can probably re-use them, or repair if needed but I might replace if I knew where to get em.

Also curious if anyone thinks it's worth cracking open the pumpkin and pulling out the internals of the differential to reduce drag? Is it possible to do this without opening the bearings and pulling the axles? Is there any reason not to in terms of controlling side loads on the bearings (ie. does the gearing in the differential help keep the axles in line with with bearings)?